
% MAINE 
CENTENNIAL 













Class _££4 



im<i:si:nti:i> hy 



Centennial Celebration 



OF THE 



Town of Jefferson 



Lincoln County, Maine, U. S. A. 



August 21, 1907 



Compiled by Alberto A. Bennett 
Chairman of the Printing Committee 



Journal Printing Company 
Lewiston, Maine 

1908 




REV. ISAAC CASE, ONE OF THE PIONEER PREACHERS 



JEFFERSON, MAINE 

Incorporated February 24, 1807 



INTRODUCTION 

As the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town 
of Jefferson drew near, it was proposed to celebrate that event in a man- 
ner worthy of the town, and to erect a monument to the memory of the 
first ""^tlers, who came into the wilderness here, and began the work of 
it a habitable community. This project was approved at the 
neeting, a suitable appropriation was voted, which was subse- 
enlarged by generous gifts from individuals, and an executive 
;ee was appointed consisting of Dr. F. W. Jackson, Leslie Boyn- 
i S. A. Richardson, to have charge of the general arrangements 
celebration. As the summer advanced, the people prepared to 
in the guests who came to enjoy the occasion. 



DRAWING THE BOULDER 

A large, well-shaped boulder was found on the shore of the Damaris- 
cotta Lake, at the mouth of the John Long brook, on the farm now owned 
by the Myrick L. Weeks heirs. This rock was suitable to receive a tab- 
let as a memorial to the early settlers. An immense stone-drag for 
drawing this boulder was made by George Hollowell and Levander Hollo- 
well. On this drag the boulder was loaded by A. J. Ames, W. A. Jack- 
son, H. A. Jackson, M. L Johnson, G. F. Weeks, and Joseph Cargill, 
by the use of suitable apparatus. On the forenoon of August 12, the 
men came together with twenty-two yoke of oxen, to form a team for 
drawing this boulder, which by stone measure weighed twenty tons. 

This team of oxen was formed and driven under the direction of 
George F. Weeks, as follows : 

yoke 



George Weeks 2 


yoke 


Edwin Cooper 




Albert Avery i 




Albert Hall 




Willis Hollowell (Town Oxen) I 




Arthur Flagg 




Wilber Tibbetts i 




Edgar Bond 




Amos Fish 2 




Lervey Castle 




George Peaslee i 




William Eugley 




Everett Weeks (Town Oxen) I 




Charles Weeks (Town Oxen) 




Newell Hussey i 




Henry Cunningham 




John Ames i 




Harry Dow 




Forest Flagg 2 









4 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

The boulder was drawn to the ground in front of the Baptist church, 
where it was placed on a strong foundation made of a granite slab con- 
tributed by Briggs Jones, set in cement, and was prepared to receive the 
tablet. 



THE TABLET 

This bronze tablet was cast and inscribed by the Bay State Brass 
Foundry of South Boston, Mass., twenty-four by thirty-two inches. The 
following twelve names were inscribed, which were the first settlers, as 
near as the committee were able to ascertain, in the order in which they 
came into the town. 

Johnathan Ames 

Joshua Linscott 

John Weeks 

Samuel Jackson 

Joseph Jackson 

Thomas Kennedy 

John Boynton 

Robert Clary 

Moses Noyes 

Thomas Trask 

John Murphy 

John Johnson 



THE CELEBRATION 

The day set for the celebration was Wednesday, August 21st. The 
place was the grounds of the First Baptist Church. A speakers' stand 
and a band stand had been erected among the trees in front of the 
church, and seats prepared for the audience. Many of the houses and 
public buildings were prettily decorated, and flags were flung from every 
convenient place. Former residents returned to their old homes, and 
invited guests accepted the hospitality of ample hearthstones. 

On the Sunday morning preceding, a Centennial Sermon was 
preached by the pastor. Rev. Alberto A. Bennett, to a large audience in 
the church. The day of the celebration was ushered in by the ringing 
of all the three church bells in town at sunrise, each bell striking one 
hundred times. At noon twenty-one strokes were given, and at sunset 
one hundred again. 

THE PARADE 

The first event of the day was the parade, which formed at the 
village, proceeded past the church, and was reviewed by a crowd of 
people with evident pleasure and satisfaction. First came the mounted 
marshal and aids, Anson P. Jackson, Frank C. Richardson and Araldo 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 5 

Bond. Then came the Waterville Band which furnished the music for 
the day. After this came the floats representing the pubHc institutions 
and industries of the town, as follows: The William C. Hall Post, 
G. A. R., with a company of veterans; the Sunday school with a class 
of children singing their songs ; Willow Grange, representing an old 
time kitchen with its various industries, spinning, weaving, knitting, 
churning, shelling corn, etc. The millinery business of Mrs. A. A. 
Skinner appeared in a handsomely decorated float. Blacksmithing by 
L. J. Kennedy, the saw mill business by J. Y. Meserve, and stone cut- 
ting by Briggs Jones, each presented a scene in their actual work. S. H. 
Bond and son. Forest H. Bond, represented their business, stoves and 
hardware; Sylvester Brothers, groceries; F. O. Mesei-ve, cooperage; 
George A. HofTses, groceries ; Frank E. Linnekin, carriages and har- 
nesses ; H. W. Weeks, cream separators. W. B. Tibbetts had a load of 
farming and dairy products, George W. Tobey showed the wall paper 
business, and Warren Peaslee exhibited his kennels of choice dogs. 

The South Jefferson Band led the second half of the parade, and 
furnished music for the evening. 

Scattered along the order of the parade, there were various historic 
and humorous representations. An old fashioned, two-wheeled, covered 
top chaise carried a couple on their journey. Louis Galloupe led a trained 
steer toting a quantity of baggage, representing an old time prospector. 
A. W. Hall rode on horseback, representing in dress and appearance a 
colonial Indian Chief. An old empty hayrack had a driver representing 
a darky. There were two representations of Uncle Sam, one rode in 
the float with the veterans, the other was leading the South Jefferson 
Band. A clown in the customary habiliments drove a worn out horse 
on an old time doctor's gig. And also there were a load of Colored 
Gentry, a load of old time Immigrants, and a load of old fashioned Husk- 
ing Bee Merrymakers. 

After passing the church the procession returned and dispersed. 



THE GATHERING 

The people gathered at the church for the exercises of the day. 
The weather was not as propitious as many had hoped. Indeed for 
a while it seriously threatened to rain, but after a little the clouds with- 
held their store, and the day was passed with comfort and pleasantness. 

On the speakers' stand there was ample room, not only for those 
who took part in the exercises, but also for the Veterans of the Civil 
War, and for all the old people of the community. Among this latter 
number was John Meservey, who remembered seeing many of the early 
settlers in his boyhood days. The speakers' stand was handsomely deco- 
rated and covered with canvas, and the table was piled with a bank of 
water lilies. The large audience listened with the closest attention. 
Dr. F. W. Jackson, chairman of the executive committee, presided, and 
with a few well-chosen words presented the speakers of the day. 

The following is the programme of exercises as given during the day : 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



PROGRAMME 

. FORENOON 

Music, The Watervillc Band 

Prayer, Rev. John Pettengill 

Remarks by the Chairman. 

Singing by the Audience, Ode written by Mrs. F. W. Jackson 

Address of Welcome, Rev. C. C. Tilley, of Mattapan, Mass. 

Unveiling of the Monument. 

Address, Hon. Chas. E. Littlefield, of Rockland 

Singing by the Audience, "Star Spangled Banner," led by 

Mrs. Matilda Trask Boynton 

AFTERNOON 

Music. 

Map of the Town, George E. Linscott 

Singing, Mrs. Matilda Trask Boynton 

Historical Address, W. G. Bond, M.D., of Revere, Mass. 

Singing, South Jefferson Quartet 

Poem, written by Miss Winifred B. Ladd, 

Read by Miss Ridgway from the State of Georgia 
Singing, South Jefiferson Quartet 

Address, Prof. L. C. Bateman, of Lewiston 

Singing, Mrs. Matilda Trask Boynton 

Oration, Rev. Nelson S. Burbank, Ph.D., of Revere, Mass. 

Singing by the Audience, "Auld Lang Syne." 
Benediction, Rev. A. A. Bennett 



UNVEILING THE MONUMENT 

Gov. Wm. T. Cobb was to have unveiled the monument, but was 
unable to be present. Congressman Littlefield offered a few remarks 
in his behalf, and carried through the ceremony of the unveiling. All 
the young children who were descendants of those whose names appeared 
on the tablet, were invited to stand near the monument when it was 
unveiled. The great boulder and tablet were covered with an immense 
flag. At the proper signal this flag was drawn up to an overhanging 
line, where it floated during the rest of the day. 



THE EVENING FIREWORKS 

The people met many old neighbors and friends and renewed old 
acquaintances, and those returning from their absence, enjoyed again 
the ties and friendships of their old home, and revived the memories of 
former years. Everything passed off pleasantly, making it a day of 
pleasure and fellowship. 




THE CELEBRATION 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON y 

After the darkness had fallen, the day was brought to a worthy 
close by a brilliant display of fireworks, given on the hill back of M. 
A, Nash's house, during which the South Jefferson Band discoursed 
abundant music. To those who were privileged to be present, this cele- 
bration was a day long to be remembered. 



REMARKS BY THE CHAIRMAN 

Dr. F. W. Jackson 

From "the far flung, fenceless prairie," from our unsalted seas on 
the north, to the sun-kissed waters of the southland, from our eastern 
littoral where the blue waves of old ocean roll in upon the shining sands, 
the glad home welcome is wafted on the breezes, over hamlet and village 
and town, over river and lake, over valley and plain and plateau and 
mountain top, till its reverberations are lost in the placid waters of the 
peaceful Pacific. Happy the day, consecrated the place, and joyous I 
hope will be the occasion. I am proud of my native town, proud of her 
pine clad hills, her fertile valleys, her spreading maples, her tapering fir 
trees and gigantic oaks, her crystal lakes, her limped streams and her 
silent rivers. Jefferson welcomes her sons and her daughters to their 
native land today. Her latch string is out, her altar fires burn brightly, 
for she welcomes you all to her hearthstones and her heart. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



ODE 

Written by Mrs. F. W. Jackson, sung by the Audience 



1807 1907 

JEFFERSON 

Air: "America" 

Dear Mother-land today, 
We pause on life's highway. 

Where'er we roam. 
Tho' far o'er plain and sea, 
Still our hearts turn to thee. 
And time recalls once more 

Our earlier home. 

On childhood's days we dwell; 
On friends we loved so well, 

In by-gone years. 
Has all our after life 
Midst the world's storm and strife, 
Brought greater happiness 

Or fewer tears? 

Fair town, we honor give. 
Thy memories ever live 

Deep in our heart. 
May thee thro' coming years 
Laden with hopes and fears 
In this great universe 

Fulfill thy part. 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 9 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME 

The Chairman : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — I have now the pleasure of presenting to 
you, one who needs no introduction, the Rev. C. C. Tilley, pastor of 
the First Baptist Church of Mattapan, Mass., who will welcome you all 
to your native town. 

Mr. Tilley: 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens of Jefferson, Former Citizens, and 
Friends : — I think any one knowing the hospitality of the town of Jeffer- 
son would think it useless to say that you are welcome, and I want to 
say in a few words that you are zvell come. 

It does seem a little strange that I should give the formal words of 
welcome. I have not been in the town for nineteen years. But I 
understand the situation : I am not to welcome you to the present, but to 
the past. For that I feel abundantly able. Li the first place, I have that 
native ability because of my antique manner. When I was a student 
in college one of my friends said I appeared as if I ought to say, "I 
have come down from a former generation." But not only that, I 
belong to your past history — to that as nearly as to any history. Of the 
poet Homer it was said that : 

"Seven cities claimed him dead 
Through which the living Homer begged his bread." 

I am not a citizen of Jefferson, and never was. I was not born here. 
My name was never on the voting list. In fact, I have no citizenship 
on earth because I never lived long enough continuously in any one 
place to gain a pauper residence. My claim, therefore, to belong to your 
past history rests upon another basis. I was not born here, but I was 
born again here — in that old church, when its life touched my life, the 
Holy Spirit working through it, and it saved me and sent me into the 
ministry. Because of what this town did for me in my early days I am 
profoundly grateful. 

You have a goodly heritage. This town, perhaps not wealthy in the 
world's wealth, has given you an inheritance that cannot be counted, 
for in its intellectual, moral and spiritual character Jefferson has excelled. 
I remember the time when it was full of boys and girls who could go any- 
where and teach acceptably. A high moral atmosphere has been given 
to the whole community by this church, which was founded by William 
Allen and moulded by the life of William Tilley, who gave to it nearly 
thirty years of his life, and who, while he was absent twice during that 
time, never left the hearts of the people till he left to go up higher. 

Early in the century the people were interested in moral reform. 
To be sure, they were cursed with the dram shop in those early days, 
and things occurred that would be impossible in this day with the Maine 
Law. Because I appreciate what the Maine Law has done for my native 
State, I spent a week of my valuable time last fall in order to secure 
its perpetuation, speaking every night and twice on the Sabbath. 

I belong to the greatest city of Maine — not in Maine, but of Maine. 
In Greater Boston we have 50,000 Maine people. I am speaking for 
them as I speak to you today. Once in awhile there is a man who has 



lo CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

strayed from his early teaching and who speaks against Maine and the 
Maine Law. I always think he is wearing the wrong kind of a hat. 

One of our Lewiston mill agents was in Boston one day and took 
dinner at the Quincy House. As he went out he took the last hat, 
supposing it to be his own. When he came to look in it, he saw there 
the picture of a great owl, and underneath it were the words : 

"When I am full, take me to the Quincy House." 

We would not expect a man owning such a hat as that to speak in 
favor of the Maine Law. 

We welcome you today, and the committee wants you to make this 
day a memorable one in your history. Says the poet Young: 

"We take note of time but from its loss ; 
To give it then a tongue is wise in man. 
As if an angel spoke, I hear the solemn sound." 

This is an occasion to be remembered long after we have passed 
away. We welcome you today to the old, strong, true character that 
has done so much for the town in the past. It may be that some of 
you have wandered from the paths that were laid down for you in 
early life. It may be that you are saying, "I am tired of these narrow 
ways." 

There was a true sense in which the fathers were narrow. They 
saw one course, and they pursued it to the end. We ask you to cling 
to the narrow life in principle, to the old and the true. But from the 
high position that you have attained through the labors of the fathers 
a responsibility comes to you in the true sense to broaden your lives — 
not to broaden the principles, but to broaden their application. But 
however much you may have departed from the teachings of the fathers, 
I welcome you today and invite you to return to a closer fellowship with 
them. 

On the castle walls the harp hung unstrung, covered with dust. It 
gave no music. A stranger came one day, took down the neglected 
instrument, brushed off the dust and tuned it. The old castle rang with 
the songs and melodies of the olden times. Our hearts go out to you 
today that they may resound with the old music, that the chords that 
were broken may vibrate once more, and that from this day you shall 
be devoted to the enlargement of the same work which the fathers 
began. If they can see us today, they would say: 

"On ! Let no man take thy crown ! Finish the work that we began !" 

And then, at its consummation: 

"Ring, bells, in unreared steeples, 
The joy of unborn peoples ! 
Sound, trumpets, far off blown. 
Your triumph is our own !" 

If you are true to the principles of the fathers, you will be able to 
say at the end : 

'T have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept 
the faith." 

Then shall this be your reward : 

"Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of 
thy Lord." 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON ii 

MR. LITTLEFIELD'S ADDRESS 

The Chairman: 

Fellow Citizens : — It is my delightful duty today, not to introduce, 
but to present, our Congressman from the Second Congressional District, 
who does represent that district and his constituents. He stands for the 
square deal, and he deals it. I have the pleasure to present to you, Mr. 
Littlefield, of Rockland. 

Mr. Littlefield: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Fellow Citizens : — I have 
just assisted, by standing one side and observing, in the unveiling of 
the monument erected by the people of this town and dedicated today 
to the memory of the original settlers thereof. On account of the 
unavoidable absence of Governor Cobb you are not having the privilege 
of listening to the representative of the State in this part of the exercises 
upon this interesting occasion, and the committee has requested me to 
say just a word that I think the Governor might say, if he happened 
to be here, in addition to the few words that I will say on my own 
account. 

It is quite fitting that the Governor of the State should be invited 
to unveil this monument and rededicate the town to the memory of the 
men who founded this municipality, because, in 1807, by virtue of the 
authority of the law, by virtue of an act of the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts, this town was incorporated as a legal entity, and it is there- 
fore quite fitting that the representative of that authority should, on 
this occasion, at the expiration of a hundred years, participate in rededi- 
cating this municipality to the memory of those men ; to re-establish it, 
in order that it may last not only one hundred years, to exercise its 
functions and discharge its responsibilities, but that for all time to 
come, with the authority and under the jurisdiction of the State, this 
town of Jefferson may be, as it is and always has been, a worthy repre- 
sentative of one of the most distinguished names in all American his- 
tory — the man for whom it was named, I suppose, Thomas Jefferson. 

Now while I doubt very much if the Governor would have made 
as good a speech as that, that is about what the Governor would have 
said if he had been here. 

I have been requested by the committee to say something about 
"The Past, Present and Future of Our Common Country." Before I 
do that I want to congratulate this audience on being gathered together 
in a part of the finest country that the world ever saw, and were it not 
for the lowering clouds and the threatening weather, I should also be 
able to say that we are enjoying today the most delightful climate and 
weather that the world has ever seen. If you were not here in person, 
I should go further and say that you are the representatives of the 
finest body of people that the world has ever seen. But inasmuch as you 
are here I should not like to be thought fulsome in undertaking to com- 
pliment you upon this occasion. Perhaps I may say, however, just one 
word, and that is that the records do show that from the people of New 
England there have sprung, during the last fifty and one hundred years, 
more able and distinguished men than can be gathered together in any 



12 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

other part of the civilized globe, and it is a matter of some pride that 
we are a small part of that great civilization. 

In order to direct your attention to "The Past, Present and Future 
of our Country," which I take it may be perhaps a very appropriate 
subject for discussion upon this Centennial occasion, suggesting com- 
parisons of the present with the past, it may be necessary to refer to 
some facts and figures. I have had neither the time nor the opportunity 
to make what T call an elaborate or a painstaking preparation for an 
occasion like this, so that what I give you here today will be largely 
miscellaneous suggestions that occur to me upon the spur of the moment, 
aided by a few salient facts that I have gathered together as illustrating 
the present when compared with the past. 

In view of the uncertain weather, I will say that the character of 
my speech is such that it can be brought to a conclusion in half a minute. 
In fact, it could be ended at any time without doing violence to the 
speech. 

In 1807, as I have already suggested in the Governor's speech, which 
I delivered in a very short time, this town was incorporated. Twenty 
years before that, in 1787, the Constitution of the United States, the 
consummation of the Union, the gathering together of the thirteen 
colonies into the thirteen original, independent and combined States 
under one government, became the fundamental law of the land, so that 
this town, with the exception of twenty years, has the same age as does 
our common country, and a comparison of conditions then with condi- 
tions now will, of course, illustrate, to a certain extent, the improvement 
and progress of our country as a whole. 

Then we started with thirteen States, largely lying along the Atlantic 
coast, and bordering upon the ocean, with small possessions, but with 
tremendous and magnificent opportunities. Now we have forty-five States, 
and when Oklahoma comes in, if she ever does, as I suppose she will 
when she gets established, we shall have forty-six great States. At that 
time we had a very small area. In addition we have today to our forty- 
five States, possessions in the northern part of the country which con- 
stitute an empire of themselves, that is Alaska. We have the territories 
of Arizona and New Mexico, we have Hawaii, we have Porto Rico, and 
we have the Philippine Islands, all of which are largely present in our 
minds for a variety of reasons and causes. Of course I cannot stop to 
discuss here whether the possession of these great outlying territories 
is wise or unwise. It is obvious that we have become a great international 
country, as distinct from a country located upon one continent. 

Now I will give, as I go along, a few important facts that tend to 
show this tremendous growth. I suppose there is no other place on the 
face of the globe that has shown the degree of development, increase and 
prosperity, the utilization of vast natural resources and the development 
of people, as has been shown by our country during these one hundred 
and twenty years, and your period of one hundred years. The history 
of Greece and Rome, of Egypt, or of any ancient foreign country, cannot 
parallel in any degree the tremendous results that have followed the 
labors of our fathers in bringing about these magnificent conditions that 
now surround us. 

One hundred years ago we had 325,000 square miles of territory. 
Today, including our States and territories and the land in our various 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 13 

possessions, we have nearly 4,000,000 square miles of territory. Then 
we had about 4,000,000 people living in the thirteen States and in the 
out-lying territories. Today we have living in our forty-five States and 
in our territories, with the people in the island accessions, subject to the 
control and domination of the United States, something like 83,000,000 
of people, a tremendous increase in the line of population. 

But our growth has not been altogether in the line of increase of 
population. You know we have a distinguished man who suggests, and 
very properly, that we should not allow race suicide to deplete our people, 
which is entirely true. I call attention to this increase in population for 
the purpose of refreshing your recollection upon that point. Up to date 
we have not had any particular cause for alarm because of race suicide, 
though I suppose it is true that here in the town of Jefferson there are 
no families with the number of children to be found here in the old 
times. My father and mother had nine children. I have two. I don't 
know but what I think as much of my two as they did of the whole nine. 
We have not now, of course, the large families, but notwithstanding all 
that there has been a tremendous increase in the line of population. 

Perhaps what is more material to many of us, there has been a vast 
increase in the accumulation of wealth. Our fathers possessed in 1790, 
so far as we can get an estimate — there are no statistics that definitely 
give these facts and figures, and it is largely a matter of conjecture and 
computation — they possessed about 1,619,000,000 of dollars, or, if it 
were divided among the people possessing that property, about $157 
apiece. I do not know but it might have been distributed a little more 
evenly then than now, but it was not distributed evenly then. My reading 
has demonstrated to me that in those days there were a great many 
people who had no prospect of having any particular individual sum, 
and the reason then was the same reason that obtains now. The average 
man in any community, if he is industrious and thrifty and saving, can, 
without any difficulty, accumulate so that he can have a reasonable 
amount or proportion of the great aggregation of wealth. But the 
trouble is, in the first place, that we are not industrious, in the second 
place, that we are not thrifty, and, in the last place, that we are not 
saving. 

In 1900 we had 94 billions of wealth. If that were distributed among 
the people, it would give each individual $1,235. That means that there 
is now in the accumulation of wealth estimated per capita, that is to each 
individual, about eight times as much wealth in the country as there 
was in 1790. Of course it is not necessary for me to enforce the proposi- 
tion that this is not all equally distributed. I don't know that we all 
have our proportion of that sum. Some people have a good deal more 
than their proportion. 

This accumulation of wealth gives an idea of the general condition 
existing now as compared with the past. Why is that? How does it 
happen that this vast accumulation of wealth has taken place, and largely 
within the last fifteen or twenty-five or thirty years? 

It is rather complimentary to our people, and, in the first place, it 
is because of their energy, intelligence, capacity and industry, and, in 
the second place, it is because this country has had, and has now, vaster 
natural resources than any country of which we have knowledge. Our 
people have utilized those vast natural resources, but if I had the time 



14 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

I could go on to show that in many instances they have been wasted, 
prodigally wasted. But, notwithstanding all that, they have been so 
great and so tremendous that we have been able to make this vast 
accumulation. 

Perhaps I might more effectively illustrate this growth by giving 
a few more remarkable facts. The government at that time received 
from its collections for all purposes something like four and one-half 
millions of dollars from England. The expenditures amounted to two 
millions, showing a surplus in the treasury of two million dollars. In 
1896 this Federal Government under which we live collected 594,000,000 
of money in its various methods of taxation — the combined sum received 
from imports, from International Revenue taxation, and from all other 
sources from which the Federal Government derives its income — nearly 
two million dollars every time the sun rolled around in twenty-four hours. 
Today our expenditures are 556 millions of dollars, showing a surplus 
as compared with the receipts of something like thirty millions every 
year. 

I suppose our relation to the rest of the world and a comparison 
of our wealth from that standpoint would be more clearly shown by 
calling attention to our relationship with other countries. We cannot 
raise in this country everything that we eat, drink and wear. We do 
raise the most of it, but we have to buy, and, on the other hand, we find 
it necessary to sell. Our fathers had to buy a great deal more than 
they had to sell. The result was, in 1790, when the country was young 
and its resources undeveloped, they were obliged to pay to foreign 
countries relatively much more every year than we do in our exchange 
of products. 

Those who claim to know about political economy say that this was 
a very unfortunate condition of affairs. There is what is called by the 
political economists the "balance of trade," which may be explained in 
this way: When the exports of a country exceed the imports, the foreign 
debtors may send money for the balance of the indebtedness, and this 
is called the "balance of trade." The excess of exports over imports is 
said to create a favorable balance of trade, but when imports exceed 
exports, and money is sent abroad to pay for the excess, the balance of 
trade is said to be unfavorable. The impression prevails that when the 
balance of trade is in our favor that demonstrates our prosperity. When 
the balance of trade is against us, that demonstrates that we have diffi- 
culty in getting along. Now our fathers were infinitely worse situated 
in that respect than we are. By the way, they have been a long time 
dead, and of course they can make no complaint if we criticise them. 

Our imports in 1790 were 2,794,000 more than our exports. That 
is to say, we were obliged to buy, to pay for, 2,794,000 dollars' worth of 
goods from abroad more than we were able to sell to them, which 
involved a drain upon the country. Our fathers could very illy stand it. 
It was more than the full amount paid for running the Federal Govern- 
ment during that period for its ordinary expenses. 

In 1906 the conditions were such that we sold to foreign countries 
$517,148,233 more than we bought of them. Now that means that the 
money of the world, which is gold, the great standard and medium of 
exchange, upon which our financial policy, by common consent, without 




THE PARADE 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 15 

reference now to principles of any political party, is based, and which 
is conceded to be the great fundamental standard of value — that simply 
means that that vast volume of money comes into this country at the 
rate of something like five hundred and a half millions every year, 
enriching the country by that very amount, and illustrating in a very 
large degree why it is that this country, that this people, with these 
opportunities, has been able to accomplish these tremendous and unpar- 
alleled results. 

Of course that might raise, and does raise, a very interesting political 
question as to the why and wherefore. But this is not the time, nor is 
it the occasion, to engage in anything like a political discussion, or in 
anything that is sectarian or religious, for we all meet here today upon 
one common level. It matters not who we are, where we came from, 
what religion we profess, or whether we do not profess any, because 
we are all here on the same common level, as free born American citizens. 
I may stop here and say that the chief glory of this country is that it 
is not only the land of the free and the home of the brave, but that it 
is the land of free thought and free speech. Now what does that mean? 
That simply means that every man and every woman, every boy and 
every girl, has the God-given, constitutional right to think as he likes, 
and speak as he likes, on any question, political, financial or religious, 
subject only that he does not violate the rights of his fellows and trans- 
gress the law. That is free thought and free speech. 

That there are a great many people I am aware who say that free 
thought means that you must think as I think, and free speech means 
that you must speak as I speak, otherwise you are heterodox and not 
orthodox. Those are theological terms, but the real orthodoxy is in every 
man thinking as he likes and speaking as he likes, with no one to molest 
or make him afraid. And that is worth a mighty sight more than the 
increase in population or the immense aggregation of wealth. 

I should like to mention now one potent illustration of expenditures. 
Before I do that let me say that these facts and figures I am giving to 
you as I go along were largely gathered by me from the census taken 
by the Federal Government in its regular ten year, decennial, periods, 
and I would like to give them here as a matter of curiosity and interest. 
The original volume that contains the census of the American people 
in 1790 is a very small affair. The volumes that contain the census of 
this people in 1900 I think number something like sixty, and they have 
anywhere from six to eight hundred pages in a volume. A horse, unless 
a good strong one, could hardly convey them in this procession up and 
down this street. 

Perhaps I ought to stop here to say as a matter of compliment to 
the gentleman arranging this procession that it does him credit to be 
able to present upon this occasion so delightful a parade, so well man- 
aged, as the procession we have seen today. I have seen a great many 
in my time — I do not want you to think by that that I know all about 
it — but I have seen a great many processions of this kind, and I have 
never seen in a place of this size as pretty a procession, so admirable in 
all its features, as your procession here today. 

I will now call your attention to this matter of the census. The 
volume now on file in the Library of Congress that contains the census 



i6 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

for 1790 is six or eight inches in size, and contains about from seventy- 
five to one hundred pages. It is about as large as a Noah Webster's 
spelHng book or an ordinary primer that we use in the primary schools. 

Here is a salient fact. In 1791, which of course was after the close 
of the war of the Revolution — the most gigantic war in which this country 
was ever engaged, yet by no means the largest — we then paid about 
175,000 dollars a year in pensions. Today we pay in pensions $141,000,- 
000 a year, thirty-four times as much as the total receipts from all 
sources of the government when our fathers founded it in 1790, and 
the republic has paid to the men who imperilled their lives, and to their 
descendants, in all the vast sum of over 3,000,000,000 of dollars during 
this one hundred and twenty years — more than the total debt caused by 
the vast war of the Rebellion, which war saddled the country with a 
greater debt than any war within modern times has involved upon the 
countries that were engaged therein — vastly greater than this war 
between Russia and Japan, although they had gone so far when they got 
around to the consideration of peace that it was only a question of a short 
time as to which could hold out the longest, because both had reached the 
limit of their money, and neither of them could continue without the sup- 
port of Christendom from a financial standpoint. That was one of the 
great reasons that enabled President Roosevelt to be successful in ter- 
minating that war by a treaty of peace between those two great nations. 

The dissemination of knowledge and information is one of the first 
duties incumbent upon an organization that has to do with the people, 
and it promotes the prosperity of the people more directly than in any 
other expenditure of money. In the Post Office Department in 1871 we 
expended $4.62 per capita in the distribution of the mail, in order that the 
people might have information. In 1905 we expended $12.05 — three 
times as much as in 1871, and it is a matter of some gratification and 
satisfaction to us as American citizens to know that while wealth has 
been accumulating, while the people have been increasing in this matter 
so essential to their prosperity and welfare, the government has con- 
stantly increased its expenditures in the distribution of the mails, so that 
this government expends today more than any other country with a like 
number of people, because we have to transport the mails thousands and 
thousands of miles upon land and water. There is no other country with 
the population of this that shows it distributed over the same amount of 
territory. 

The introduction of the Rural Free Delivery during the last ten or 
fifteen years has given the greatest boon to our agricultural population 
that they have received at the hands of the government for years. With 
the benefits of the Rural Free Delivery may be mentioned the telephone, 
which has now so generally penetrated to the country towns. Every man 
now insists on having a telephone, not only that he may communicate 
with others, but that he may hear others when they communicate with 
others. 

In 1800 five dollars apiece was found sufficient to transact the busi- 
ness of this country. In 1905, instead of five dollars per capita, we had 
$31.08 in circulation of coin. In addition to that it should be borne in 
mind that the amount of money in circulation bears relatively a very 
small percentage to the total amount of business done, because the people 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 17 

in these days do a great amount of their business by checks and drafts, 
which makes it unnecessary to pass money from hand to hand. While 
this amount of money in circulation is no index to the vast amount of 
business transacted, we may be sure that it is vaster than it was in 1800. 

Here is another important feature that is a direct contribution to the 
prosperity and industry of our people : In 1800 there was no such thing 
as a savings bank. There were no trust companies, no national banks 
with savings deposits. In 1905 there were in the savings banks in this 
country three billions of money. I may say here that the State of Maine 
in many respects stands ahead in the amount of its savings, the number 
of its banks, the number of its people having deposits therein, and the 
character of its deposits. It speaks volumes for the thrift, the energy, 
the industry, and, what is more, vastly more important than all else, the 
sobriety of the people of the State of Maine — no matter what my views 
may be upon the question of temperance and the Maine law. I may go 
farther and say that the record of Maine banks shows that in the last ten 
years the increase in savings has come largely from the farmers, the 
agricultural element of our population, showing that they have exercised 
thrift, and have not only been able to maintain themselves and their 
wives and children, but have been able to accumulate for a rainy day. 

I want to call your attention now to one of the indispensable factors 
in all of this great development that has taken place: In 1832 we had 
229 miles of railroad. In 1906 we had 230,000 miles of railroad. There 
are millions of acres, and millions upon millions of investments in this 
country that today would not be worth the paper upon which their stocks 
are printed were it not for the fact that they have speedy and cheap 
transportation over the railroads throughout the country. The great 
transcontinental lines that tie together the Atlantic and the Pacific give 
a long haul at a low rate, which seems absolutely indispensable to the 
development of the vast natural resources of our country. 

We have right here in the State of Maine two extraordinary 
examples of what the railroads have made possible. They may not pre- 
sent so impressive a proposition to you people here in this rural com- 
munity, where you are not dependent for your prosperity upon the manu- 
facturing industries and the transportation abroad of the things that you 
raise. We have two extraordinary illustrations of the fact that without 
speedy and economical and cheap railroad transportation there would 
be no development. One of them is in my district, and is the town known 
as Rumford Falls. Fifteen years ago, where there are now eight or 
nine thousand people, one or two farmers lived and endeavored to till 
so much soil as there was — it was largely rocks. Today there is an 
undeveloped water power there of something like thirteen thousand horse 
power, and a developed water power of something like seventeen thou- 
sand horse power. It is a most thriving, prosperous, and industrious 
community, and will favorably compare in the rapidity of its growth with 
any place in New York or the Middle West. That town was built and 
this remarkable growth is due to the fact that a railroad was constructed 
to carry in the raw material and at the same time carry out the manu- 
factured product. Without the railroad such a phenomenal advancement 
as has there been made would not have been possible, and it would have 
been but a haunt for wild beasts and a habitation for owls. 



i8 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

Millinocket is another case in point, although not so striking an 
illustration, because I think there we have only four or five thousand 
people, but it represents the investment of millions of money. In 1899 
it was only a log camp and a farm house in the woods, and in this short 
time, through the operations of the Great Northern Paper Company, 
which turns out the largest amount of paper of any mill in the world, 
Millinocket has become what it is today. 

I merely call attention to the fact that without these great facilities 
for transportation the vast undeveloped resources of this country would 
be unutilized, and that the railroads are not only indispensable to our 
peace and comfort but to our industrial and business existence. 

I live in a town where I help pay taxes part of the time at the rate 
of three per cent, per annum in order that we may have the Knox & 
Lincoln Railroad, and it takes five or six hundred thousand dollars right 
out of the pockets of its tax payers for the purpose of having an opening 
to the world. It has cost us a good deal of money to get it, but we need 
it because Rockland would hardly be on the map if we could not be 
reached with rapid transportation. 

Behind the railroads there lies a great fundamental, natural force 
that has been largely responsible and is largely entitled to the credit of 
this great expansion, and that is steam. Within the last fifty years — 
I think it was in 1832 that it was first applied to railroads, and in 1840 
first applied to steamships to any extent — we have had the application 
of steam to human eflfort and endeavor. A great English writer says 
that it is an equivalent in co-operative power to 250 men. 

There is another great force which is undoubtedly responsible for 
and entitled to the credit of this phenomenal development, and that is 
electricity. In a great many instances there would be no electricity 
without the gigantic power of steam. In the last ten years by the means 
of transmitting the electric current a long distance it has been possible 
to combine the water power of a whole river and transport it to one par- 
ticular place, and there use it in industries of various kinds. That is one 
reason why the State of Maine is likely to have an industrial future 
because we can aggregate the water power of a whole river by concen- 
trating it by means of an electric wire. 

Now I want to say a word about the future : I do not see how it 
is possible through the next fifty or one hundred years to see anything 
like the industrial or financial development that this country has seen 
during the last fifty years. We have the telephone and the telegraph 
of electricity, we have the railroads, we have steam, we have transporta- 
tion through the air by means of the flying machine. I don't see how 
it is possible in time to come to duplicate those magnificent inventions. 

I think I may say for the future, if we transmit to our children the 
same elements of industry, of probity, of sobriety and intelligence that 
were transmitted to us by our fathers, if we maintain our system of 
education, disseminating useful and valuable knowledge everywhere, that 
we can expect to see a continuation of the development that has been 
going on, but we cannot expect to see a duplication of the last fifty 
years. Those of us who have lived during the last fifty years feel that 
the achievements of our day can hardly be duplicated in the future. 

It rests upon us as patriotic American citizens to live up to and 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 19 

abide by the laws of the United States and the teachings of the fathers. 
If we do, with these changes, these opportunities and these resources, 
this country will always endure, and will be, as it now is and always has 
been, the land of the free and the home of the brave, containing homes 
where the comforts, conveniences and luxuries of the long ago are now 
necessities, and the standard of living, the clothes we wear, the food we 
eat, the things we drink, has reached a higher and finer degree of 
development in the ministering to the comfort of human kind than has 
ever before been seen anywhere in any land that the sun shines on. 

Hoping now that we may be able in our weak and feeble way, as 
simple factors in this great development, to contribute our share, I thank 
you most heartily for your very kind attention under these very adverse 
circumstances. 



THE HISTORICAL ADDRESS 

The Chairman: 

It is my pleasant duty to welcome to his native town for this 
auspicious day, my brother of the healing art, than which there is no 
nobler profession, the honest, the able, the true, the trusted family 
physician, Dr. Willis G. Bond, of Revere, Mass., who will now deliver 
the Historical Address. 

Dr. Bond: 

FIRST SETTLERS IN MAINE 

On Easter Sunday, March 31, 1605, George Weymouth sailed from 
the Downs, England, and on May 1 1 came in sight of the American coast 
near Cape Cod. 

He sailed northwardly, after a few days, and on May 17, 1605, he 
anchored on the north side of a prominent island, which he named St. 
George, but now known as Monhegan. 

The next day he found a harbor to the north "among the islands" 
and in range "with the mountains," and there came to anchor. 

He also discovered St. George's river, visited Pemaquid, perhaps 
went farther west in the shallop which he made, and then, with five 
Indians which he captured, returned to England. 

The glowing account of Weymouth's exploration of the coast, its 
spacious harbors, the abundance of fish and game, the noble trees, the 
luxuriant herbage and the balmy climate aroused general interest in 
England and doubtless had some influence upon the formation in the fol- 
lowing year of the great stock companies. 

April 10, 1606, King James I. of England granted two patents for 
purposes of colonization. 

The company which was to take charge of the southern colony was 
composed of London gentlemen and because known as the London Com- 
pany, while control of the northern branch was in the hands of men of 
Plymouth and therefore called the Plymouth Company. 

The London Company was permitted to begin a settlement any- 
where below 41 degrees north latitude. 



20 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

Their first settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, 
whose ter-centennial is being celebrated at the present time. 

The Plymouth Company was allowed to settle anywhere above 38 
degrees north latitude. Neither company could begin a settlement within 
one hundred miles of the other. 

The Plymouth Company sent out a colony consisting of "one hundred 
and twenty persons for planters." They came in two ships, the larger 
one called "Mary and John," and the smaller, the "Gift of God." 

This expedition was in charge of George Popham, a nephew of Sir 
John Popham, and sailed from Plymouth, England, June 10, 1607. 

They settled at the mouth of the Kennebec river and formed the first 
English speaking settlement in New England. 

Popham having died during the winter, the colonists, disheartened 
by the severity of the climate, returned to England the following spring. 

The southern branch of the corporation or the London Company 
obtained new patents, which were more definite in scope of territory 
and authority over it at two different dates, 1609 ^ind 162 1. 

Believing such action a necessity at the north, the Plymouth Com- 
pany, through Gorges, petitioned the Crown for a new patent, which was 
granted November 3, 1620. 

This last company consisted of forty noblemen and gentlemen, who, 
in their associate capacity, were termed "The Council established at 
Plymouth in the County of Devon, for planting, ruling and governing 
New England in America." 

The name New England here appears for the first time in high 
official form. 

The bounds of the new company were set in the patent, between 
the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude, which on the coast line com- 
mences at the parallel of Philadelphia and extends along the mainland 
to the Bay of Chaleur. East to west the patent extended "through the 
mainland from sea to sea." 

There had been, up to 1632, at least twelve and probably more grants 
made by the Plymouth Council along the shore of Maine ; but two only 
of these will be considered as they cover the territory under consideration. 

On January 13, 1630, a grant was made to William Bradford of 
the new colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and his associates, of fifteen 
miles on each side of the Kennebec river extending from its mouth to the 
Cobossee river at the present site of Gardiner. 

Additions were afterward made by purchase and otherwise, and the 
northern bound was finally fixed at the present town of Norridgewock. 



THE KENNEBEC PURCHASE 

In 1661, the Plymouth colony conveyed the Kennebec tract to 
Antipas Boyes, Edward Tyng, Thomas Brattle and John Winslow for 
four hundred pounds. 

This was known as the "Kennebec Purchase" and the sale was made 
because of trouble with the French and Indians, which had rendered 
Plymouth trade here quite unprofitable. 

The Kennebec patent lay dormant until the year 1749, a period of 
eighty-eight years, when Edward Winslow, Robert Temple, Henry 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 21 

Laughton, Jacob Wendell, Thomas Valentine, John Bonner, Samuel 
Goodwin, John Fox and Joseph Gooch, heirs and assigns of Boyes and 
his associates, met at the Royal Exchange tavern, in King street, Bos- 
ton, and organized a company which they called "Proprietors of the Ken- 
nebec Purchase from the late colony of Plymouth." 

At a later date, William and James Bowdoin, Thomas and John 
Hancock, Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, Benjamin Hallowell, James Bayard 
and many others became their associates. 

On February 19, 1631, the Pemaquid patent was made to two mer- 
chants of Bristol, England, Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Eldridge. 

James SulHvan in his "History of the District of Maine," published 
in 1795, describes this grant as follows: "Pemaquid, 12,000 acres, bounded 
from head of Damariscotta river to the head of Muscongus river, thence 
to the sea, with all islands within three leagues." 

In the same grant "one hundred acres to every passenger and fifty 
acres to everyone born there within seven years." 

The Pemaquid claim, through change in ownership, became known 
later as the Drowne claim, and embraced all of the present towns of 
Bristol, Bremen, Damariscotta and part of Newcastle and Nobleboro. 

The Brown claim was founded on the purchase by John Brown of 
Bristol, July 15, 1625, from the Wawenock sagamores, Capt. John 
Somerset and Unongoit, of the tract described as follows: "Beginning 
at Pemaquid Falls, and so running a direct course to the head of New 
Harbor, and thence to the south end of Muscongus Island, taking in the 
island, and so running five and twenty miles into the country north and 
east and thence eight miles northwest and by west, and then turning 
and running south and by west to Pemaquid where first begun." 

The consideration for this purchase was fifty beaver skins. 

These limits would include as now constituted, all of Nobleboro, 
Damariscotta, Bremen and Jefferson and the greater part of Bristol and 
Newcastle. 

This old Indian deed of Brown's is supposed to be the first deed 
ever properly executed in America, and was recorded at Charlestown, 
Mass., December 26, 1720, and also an attested copy was recorded in 
York County Registry, August 3, 1739. 

John Brown died about 1670 in either a place very near where 
Damariscotta village stands or in Boston at the home of his son. 

He left three children, John Brown, Jr., Elizabeth, who married 
Richard Pierce of Marblehead, and Margaret, who married Sander 
Gould. 

In 1660, Brown deeded to Gould and his wife a tract eight miles 
square nearly in the centre of his purchase. 

The Goulds had three daughters, Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth. 
Margaret married William Stilson, who was killed by the Indians, but 
left two children, James and Margaret, who later made claim to the land. 

The daughter, Margaret Stilson, married William Hilton, who also 
was killed by the Indians, but to whom the larger part of those bearing 
the name of Hilton in this part of the State trace their descent. 



22 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

THE NOBLE CLAIM 

The Noble claim rested upon the following: Mary, daughter of 
Sander and Margaret (Brown) Gould, married John Coats. They had 
one son, Prinsent Coats. He sold his claim, whatever it might amount 
to, to William Noble, mentioning in particular, the eight-mile-square 
tract. This descended by will from Noble to his heirs, and they were 
very active in pressing their claims in many instances where there was 
no likelihood that they extended, even if they had an equity anywhere. 

James Noble was the heir of William, and in 1765 he married the 
widow of William Vaughan, with whom the Vaughn claim originated. 
The town of Nobleboro, much against the wishes of its inhabitants, took 
its name, when incorporated, Nov. 20, 1788, from Arthur Noble, heir of 
James. 

As early as 1730, William Vaughan of Boston came to Damariscotta 
Fresh Falls and commenced a settlement. He claimed under the Brown 
title as far east as Pemaquid pond, and west to Mill river. James Noble 
and Elliot Vaughn, his brother, came with him. In 1730, he built two 
double saw mills and a grist mill. Damariscotta pond in his day was 
called Vaughn's pond. After his death his right passed over to Elliot 
Vaughn and James Noble. 

The Brown claim, including the claims of Noble and Vaughn, did 
not cause much if any trouble to the settlers in Jefferson. 

Those settlers living within the limits of the Kennebec Purchase, 
that is, within fifteen miles of the Kennebec river, were driven to 
desperate measures to protect their ownership. 

We cannot better illustrate this than by quoting from a "History 
of Kennebec Purchase," found in Vol. IV. of the Maine Historical 
Society collection. 

"As early as 1796 the squatters in Ballstown (now Jefferson) had 
become sufficiently numerous to act in a body and to prevent individuals 
from agreeing to any measure not approved by the majority. They at 
first advanced the doctrine (which subsequently was decided untenable 
by the highest tribunal) that this corporation under the general law 
establishing landed corporations, could only sell land when necessary to 
raise money to pay debts. As the company temporized wuth them the 
settlers became more resolute and refused to allow any survey of the 
land unless they could previously know what was to be the price of their 
land." In 1802 steps were taken looking to a compromise between the 
company and settlers. A petition was made to the general court for a 
commission to be appointed to adjust the troubles, A resolve was passed 
which prescribed the principles upon which the commission should act, 
and required also the consent both of the company and of the settlers 
to the terms of the resolve, before the commission should proceed ; and 
those settlers who did not give a written acquiescence to its terms before 
a fixed day were to be debarred from its benefit. 

By the terms prescribed the settlers were to be divided into three 
classes, those who had taken their land previous to the Revolutionary 
War, when the company offered their lots freely to anyone who would 
occupy and improve them ; those who went on during the war, and those 
who had taken up their lots subsequently. The price was to be lowest 
to the first class and highest to the last. 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 23 

The resolve closed with an earnest appeal to the settlers, as friends 
of peace, good order and the commonwealth, to submit to the resolve. 

The State agreed to pay half of the expense which under common 
circumstances would have fallen to the settler to pay. 

Many settlers in Whitefield, Palermo, Freedom and other towns 
submitted to this resolve and deeds were given by the company's agent 
to the settlers the following June when they paid for their land. 

The terms were not satisfactory to the Jefferson settlers. They, 
however, submitted, upon a further modification of terms by the legis- 
lature, by which they were to relinquish all claims, and receive deeds 
of their lots upon payment of five dollars in each case as a fee. 

The original claimants were to receive an equivalent in the unlocated 
lands of the State. 

Three disinterested persons, not inhabitants of Massachusetts or 
Maine, were to be commissioners and execute the will of the State. 

Jeremiah Smith, who had been chief justice and governor of New 
Hampshire, William H. Woodward of the same State, and Judge David 
Howell of Rhode Island were appointed to this office. This commission 
in 1813 proved satisfactory and settled the last great controversy respect- 
ing land titles in Maine. 

In the town records we find that on June i, 1812, the following was 
passed : "Voted to raise $200 to enable the committee appointed by the 
town to meet with agents appointed by the governor of this common- 
wealth to settle the dispute between the non-resident proprietors, com- 
monwealth and settlers in Jefiferson, Nobleboro, Newcastle and other 
towns mentioned in submission, who are to meet for that purpose at the 
house of Nathaniel Bryant in Nobleboro, on the 25th day of June, 1812-" 

LINCOLN ACADEMY GRANT 

A few years before the proprietors' claims were finally settled another 
element of disturbance made its appearance in what was known as the 
Lincoln Academy grant. 

When the charter of the academy was obtained in 1801, there was 
a provision for State aid, when three thousand dollars was raised by 
private subscription. After this was raised the State assigned them one- 
half a township in the unoccupied lands of the State. This appropriation 
of land by the Legislature, not being satisfactory to the trustees, probably 
on the ground that it might be some time before the half township of 
land would be settled and become productive to the academy, they 
petitioned the Legislature, by a committee raised for the purpose, of 
whom David Dennis of Nobleboro was chairman, that instead of unappro- 
priated wild land they might have the "Gore." 

This is described as follows : "The gore of land lying between the 
Plymouth and Waldo claims at the head of Damariscotta pond." 

This contained about 30,000 acres. 

The Legislature granted the petition of the trustees by an act passed 
Feb. 12, 1803, and the trustees proceeded to sell out those acres. 

That this arrangement was not satisfactory to those owning or 
holding land in this territory is shown by a petition to the Legislature 
in 1813. This petition is rather long and we will give only an abstract 
from the closing part. 



24 . CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

The settlers in their petition claim that "the trustees conveyed to 
three of their number as purchasers the residue of their claim which 
they say lay within the incorporated towns, by virtue whereof these 
purchasers have been calling on your petitioners, asserting the right of 
the commonwealth to be in them. 

"Intimidating all by threats of suit and as it were, hastily forcing 
settlement to amass wealth before it might be determined whether the 
deed granted to the trustees as aforesaid, be in conformity to the will of 
the Legislature, and the title if ever it was fully or legally vested in these 
purchasers of the trustees, before a release of the heirs or assigns of 
the non-resident claimants in the submission between them and the 
commonwealth since late lately was given." 

This petition is signed by a long list of settlers in Jefferson, Noble- 
boro and Waldoboro. 

A resolve was passed by the General Court in Boston, Feb. 28, 
1814, authorizing the trustees of the academy to give a warranty deed 
to the settlers, releasing them from any claim of the commonwealth or 
of the trustees, upon payment of about thirteen cents per acre. 

SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN 

Who built the first log house and settled there with his family, we 
do not know. We find it frequently stated that the town was settled 
in 1770, also that it gained its plantation name of Ballstown from John 
Ball, the first settler. 

When and where Ball settled, I have not been able to ascertain. 
It is very probable that the first settler located near Newcastle, which 
was very early settled and was incorporated June 19, 1753. At this time 
there was quite a settlement at Damariscotta Mills. 

There is on record at Wiscasset a deed given by Joshua Linscott to 
his son Ephraim and another to his son, Jonathan, in which he states 
that the land conveyed to each son, is a part of the premises surveyed 
for him by Elijah Partridge, surveyor, August 4, 1764. 

Daniel C. Linscott, Esq., of Boston, a grandson of Joshua Linscott, 
is authority for the statement that his grandfather, Joshua, the next year 
after his land was surveyed, cleared a portion which for many years 
was termed the "house lot," and built a log house and located his family 
there. 

This would make him a settler in 1765 and antedates any other of 
which we have a record. This is the farm which was occupied by the 
late Hiram Linscott. 

There is also a plan of land which belonged to Archibald McAllister 
on record at Wiscasset dated May 13, 1766. 

A committee was appointed by Newcastle Sept. 22, 1774, "to lay 
out a road from the town road near Benjamin Glidden's to the north 
town line to accommodate the people of Ballstown." 

From this we would infer that there must have been a number of 
families living there, and also that at this time the plantation had received 
its name of Ballstown. 

As early as 1792 the question of incorporation was agitated. We 
find in the early record of Ballstown that at a plantation meeting held 
April 2, 1792, Article 10, was as follows: 




i^* w^'m 



DAMARISCOTTA i.AKE. 



VIEW AT BUNKER HILL 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 25 

"To see if the plantation will vote to petition the General Court to 
be set off as a district or incorporated into a town and in what manner 
they will proceed." 

This meeting voted not to petition the General Court. 

July 22, 1793, a vote was taken to see if the inhabitants would divide 
the plantation, in which 30 voted to divide and 48 against it. 

In 1795-6 and -7, they voted not to take any act toward incorpora- 
tion. For the next four years the records are silent on this question. 

December 7, 1801, it was voted to divide the plantation "beginning 
at Turner's meadow brook on New Milford (now Alna) line, thence 
running a course about N. N. E. to strike between Michael Glidden's 
and Jonathan Peasley's and to continue that course to the plantation 
north line." 

Samuel Waters, Joseph Jackson and Samuel Kincaid were appointed 
a committee to have the division line surveyed. On April 5, 1802, it was 
voted to accept the line as laid out and surveyed by this committee. 

At a meeting in April, 1807, after electing a few officers (pro tempore 
as recorded) and taking a ballot on the separation of the District of 
Maine from Massachusetts, in which 139 votes were for separation and 
47 against it, they voted to adjourn the meeting on the west side to meet 
at Abraham Choate's on the 27th inst. and also voted to adjourn the 
meeting on the east side to meet at James Reeves' on the same 27th inst. 

The mutual division and adjournment of the meeting would indicate 
that the utmost harmony prevailed in regard to the separation and incor- 
poration of Jefferson. 

The town was undoubtedly named for Thomas Jefferson, who at 
that time was President of the United States. Tradition says that the 
name was suggested by Jonathan Trask, who was one of the active men 
in town affairs, and a great admirer of President Jefferson. 

ACT OF INCORPORATION 

The following is the act of incorporation as found in Chapter 62, 
Laws of Massachusetts, Vol. 4, new series : 

An Act to incorporate the easterly part of the plantation heretofore 
called Ballstown into a separate town by the name of Jefferson. 

Section i. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, that 
the easterly side of the plantation heretofore called Ballstown in the 
County of Lincoln, as described within the following bounds, be and 
hereby is incorporated into a town by the name of Jefferson, viz. : 

Beginning at a red oak tree marked for a corner, standing near 
Travel pond so called, from thence running south sixty degrees east five 
miles and two hundred and eighty poles, to Union line, to a hemlock 
tree marked for a corner, thence south sixty-six degrees west one mile 
and two hundred and forty poles to a tree marked for a corner on 
Waldoborough line, thence southwest two miles and two hundred and 
sixty poles, to Nobleboro line, to a tree marked for a corner, thence west 
north-west two miles and eighty poles, to a tree marked for a corner, 
standing on the shore of Damariscotta pond, thence across said pond to 
the western shore of said pond, thence down said pond as said pond runs 



26 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

to Newcastle line, to a tree marked for a corner, thence west-northwest 
three miles and forty poles to a stake and stones at Turner's brook so- 
called, for a corner, thence north twenty-seven degrees east eleven miles 
and twenty poles to the bound first mentioned. 

And the said town is hereby vested with all the powers and privileges, 
and subject to all the duties and requirements to which other towns are 
entitled or subjected by the constitution and laws of this commonwealth. 

Section ii. And be it further enacted, that either of the justices 
of peace, for the county of Lincoln, be and he is hereby authorized to 
issue a warrant directed to some inhabitant of said town of Jefiferson, 
requiring him to notify and warn the inhabitants of the said town to meet 
at such convenient time and place as shall be appointed in said warrant, 
for the choice of such officers as towns are by law required to choose 
at their annual town meeting. 

[This act passed February 24, 1807.] 

FIRST TOWN MEETING 

The first town meeting was called to meet at the dwelling house of 
James Reeves on Monday, the nth day of May, 1807. 

At this meeting William Hopkins was elected moderator, David S. 
Trask, clerk ; Jonathan Trask, Joseph Weeks and James Robinson, select- 
men. John Parker bid off the constableship at public "vendue" for $57, 
John Policy and Richard Powers giving bonds for $3,000 for the faithful 
performance of his duties as constable and collector. 

On the day of this meeting another meeting was called to be held 
May 16, five days later. Why this adjournment was made we do not 
know. 

At the meeting May 16, Joseph Weeks was elected treasurer, Jona- 
than Trask, Joseph Weeks and James Robinson chosen assessors. 

John Parker bid off the collector's office at four per cent. 

Then were chosen seventeen highway surveyors, eleven surveyors 
of lumber and cullers of staves, twelve tything men, ten field drivers, 
twelve fence viewers, eight hog reeves and seven pound keepers. 

The appropriations made were as follows : 

To defray town charges, $200. 

For schooling the children, $400. 

To be expended on highways, $1,000. 

Voted to work out the money on highway by August i, at one dollar 
per day per man. 

Voted, that hogs should run at large, must be well yoked according 
to law. 

Voted, that pound keepers should make pounds of their own barns, 
free of expense to the town. 

Samuel Waters, Jonathan Trask and William Hopkins chosen to 
settle accounts with plantation of Ballstown. 

William Hopkins, Thomas Trask and Samuel Waters chosen to settle 
town accounts. 

Voted that the bounty on "croos" heads should be twenty-five cents. 

The committee appointed at this meeting to adjust the accounts 
between Jefferson and Ballstown made their report April i, 1808. 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 27 

The debt of the entire plantation at time of separation was $237.44. 
Of this it was agreed that Ballstown should pay $107.03 and Jefferson 

$no.4i. 

We find that nearly every year at the annual town meeting, money 
was voted "to support the gospel." 

This varied from $150 to $300 in different years, and a committee 
was appointed from different sections of the town "to pay over the money 
to whom they shall see fit to call to preach in town this year.' 

While there seems not to have been any objection to appropriating 
money for religious work, we are led to infer that there were different 
opinions as to how it should be used. , , . ^ . o o ^u 

In a warrant for a town meeting to be held in September, i8o», the 
following article appears: "To see what method the town will take, in 
order to settle the Rev. William Allen in this town to preach the gospel 
of peace to dying sinners." 

At a meeting it was voted to dismiss the article. 

In the call for a town meeting for election of representatives to 
Congress or General Court at Boston, we find a property qualification 
of voters, which evidently did not apply to the town election as the 
following abstract will show : "Said inhabitants of said town for one 
year next preceding, having a freehold estate within said town of the 
annual income of three pounds, or any estate to the value of sixty pounds 

The first mention of any help being given to the poor was at a meet- 
ing held April 2, 1810, when a man and his wife were ' bid off by 
David Trask for three dollars and sixty cents per week, with the follow- 
ing conditions : "The said David to provide meat, furnish nursing, fire- 
wood and rooms sufficient for them for one year, if they should live so 

°"^The custom then prevailed of selling the paupers to the lowest 
bidder for their board and care. rr ■ ■, ^■ 

There are no records to show that the town took any official action 
bearing upon the War of 1812, except an entry in the town treasurer s 
account for 1813, when there are charges for lead, bullet moulds, running 
bullets, camp-kettles, powder, etc., amounting to upward of forty dollars. 

In the records at the Adjutant General's office at Augusta we find a 
Roll of Capt. Davis Boynton's company of militia, raised in Jefferson and 
in service at Wiscasset and vicinity from the nth to the 14th of Septem- 
ber 1814. Including its officers this company numbers thirty-six men. 

' There were, according to an inventory on record in 181 1 : 192 polls 
21 years old and upward, 134 dwelling houses and 1 35 barns, one grist 
mill, one carding mill, one fulling mill and four saw mills 

There were raised that year 1023 bushels of wheat and 3249 bushels 
of Indian corn. 

SEPARATION FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

The earliest record we find regarding the separation of Maine from 
Massachusetts has been already referred to, as occurring in April, 1807. 
From then for several years it apparently did not receive much attention. 
It was revived again in the spring of 1816 when at a meeting in May 
a ballot was taken with 61 yeas and 45 nays. It is evident that during 
this year there was a great deal of effort put forth by those favoring 



28 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

separation, as there are many circulars on file, and a written ballot was 
called for at another meeting held Sept. i, 1816. 

The first mention of a building for school purposes was in 1809, when 
at the April meeting it was voted : "That one hundred and fifty dollars 
be expended for labor and materials that year for a schoolhouse for the 
fifth class," later known as the fifth district or Trask school. Thomas 
Trask, Abner Ford and Jonathan Trask were chosen to superintend the 
building of the house as well as to manage the school. 

It is presumed that the early schools were held at the dwelling houses 
in different parts of the town, as money was appropriated each year for 
school purposes, but how it was used there is no account for a number of 
years after incorporation. 

There is a document among the town papers, locating the district 
bounds as originally laid out, with names of families and number of schol- 
ars in each. This division was made in 1816 and there were according 
to this record 640 scholars in the town to be educated with an appropria- 
tion of $400. The schools of those days would doubtless seem crude and 
limited in the ground covered and methods used, when compared with 
some of our modern schools, but when we look at the men who came from 
those schools, we find a great many energetic and successful business 
men, with high moral standards that would put to shame many modern 
financiers whose only aim is the almighty dollar. 

Jefferson's schools have always been above the average and it has 
been said that more teachers have gone forth from this town than from 
any other town in the county. 

Under date of Nov. 10, 1827, we find the following record : — 

"Joseph Jackson, Jr., applied for license. Town clerk and treasurer 
not being at home he was permitted to sell spirituous liquors until Sep- 
tember next for five dollars." 

(Signed) Jesse Rowell, 

Selectman of Jefferson. 

One of the landmarks of the town is the old pound built in 1829. 
This was built of stone, circular in form, forty feet in diameter on the 
inside. The walls are six feet thick at the bottom and seven feet high. 
The contract for building was made with Silas Noyes for $28. 

For many years this asset of the town has suffered neglect and 
today remains but a monument of the past. 

In 1858 on the prohibitory act there were 72 votes for prohibition 
and one for license. This speaks in no uncertain tone for the moral and 
temperance sentiment at that time. 

In 1859 the town voted on petition of Orrin Folsom and others, for 
setting off part of Jefferson to Somerville. The vote was unanimously 
against it. 

July 3, 1861, voted to furnish supplies to families of volunteers in 
the United States service. 

July 26, 1862, voted to raise $2,300 to pay bounties to 23 volunteers 
to make up the quota. 

August 27, 1862, voted to hire $3,400 for 34 volunteers, nine months 
men, to make up quota. 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 29 

A committee of ten was appointed at this meeting to encourage 
enlistments. 

March ii, 1863, raised $300 for support of destitute families of 
volunteers. 

November 24, 1863, voted to pay volunteers $300 each. 

February 25, 1864, voted to pay $300 to volunteers for call of Feb- 
ruary I, 1864. 

June II, 1864, voted to raise $700 for families of volunteers. 

August 13, 1864, another vote to raise $300 per man. 

August 25, 1864, voted to raise $200 per man. 

December 12, 1864, voted to raise $8,000 for volunteers. 

February 18, 1865, voted to raise $3,000 for volunteers. 

These votes given as they were recorded furnished proof of the 
loyalty of the citizens of Jeflferson during the dark days of the Civil 
War, far better than any comment which I can make. 

Jefferson gave not only her money as shown in these votes, but two 
hundred and seventeen of her best and dearly beloved young men, many 
of whom never returned. 

These frequent town meetings of the war time were held in the old 
town house which was situated on the west side of the road near where 
the late Charles Weeks lived. It was a rough building and during the 
last years of its use became very dilapidated. 

On March 8, 1869, the town voted $700 to build a new town house, 
and on April 12, 1869, a contract was made with Josiah Bruce to build 
the house for $895. The old building was sold to Samuel J. Bond 
for $30. 

DEEP RELIGIOUS INTEREST 

In 1729 David Dunbar, with a commission from the Crown of Eng- 
land as "Surveyor General of the King's Woods and Governor of Saga- 
dahoc" came to Pemaquid. He by royal order was required "to settle 
as well as govern Sagadahoc." 

With this end in view he employed agents and stimulated their 
activity by land grants. His agents being of the Scotch-Irish stock, 
persuaded a large number, who had immigrated from Ulster County, 
Ireland, which was in the midst of religious contention, to settle there. 

"Fresh and fervid from the siege of Londonderry and the battle- 
fields of Enniskillen, came the children of the church, full of faith, hope 
and zeal, panting for freedom to worship God." 

The religious character and proclivities of the people in the Dunbar 
settlements soon developed a state of deep religious interest. Destitute 
of the stated means of grace, the people met together every Sabbath, 
and frequently on other days, for the purpose of worshiping God in a 
public manner by prayer, singing of Psalms and reading instructive 
books. 

The so-called "Dunbar Settlements" were in the towns south and 
adjoining Jefiferson. The descendants of these settlers, as they took up 
new farms, naturally followed up the waterways and extended north- 
ward into the country. Hence the majority of the early settlers in 
Jefferson came from Newcastle, Boothbay, Edgecomb and other neigh- 
boring towns, and were largely the descendants of these earnest Scotch- 
Irish immigrants. To this is due the strong individuality, the upright 



30 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

and moral character, the deep spiritual and religious sentiment that per- 
vaded the early inhabitants of our beloved town. 

As early as 1784 a Baptist minister by the name of Stearns, occa- 
sionally visited the town and held services. In 1785 Rev. James Potter 
visited Whitefield, then Ballstown, where he preached, extending his 
labors into the western part of this town. 

In 1798 Rev. Mr. McLane of Bristol commenced occasional visits 
to the town as a missionary, which he continued for nine years. In 
1804 the people residing at and about the head of Damariscotta pond, 
took measures for building a house of worship, without, however, pre- 
viously determining anything in respect to the denomination that should 
occupy it. 

In 1808 the house was finished and in October of that year was 
dedicated. It was in subsequent years controlled and occupied chiefly 
by Baptists, the pew holders embracing or becoming favorable to that 
faith. This building was used until 1844, when the present house was 
built. 

In November, 1807, a powerful and interesting work of grace 
commenced among the people in connection with the labors of a young 
man by the name of William Allen of Sedgwick, Maine. 

CHURCH ORGANIZED 

This revival continued the following year and on June 16, 1808, 
the First Baptist Church was organized. Rev. Isaac Case, Rev. Jabez 
Lewis and Rev. Phineas Pillsbury forming the council. 

The church was organized with eleven members : John Kennedy, 
Abiathar Richardson, Thomas Kennedy, Richard Brann, Ichabod Rollins, 
Archibald Robinson, Benjamin Reed, Thomas Dow, Hannah Kennedy 
and Temperance Gilpatrick. Additions were made during the summer, 
so that at the meeting of the association in September of that year there 
was a membership of seventy-five. 

On January 24, 1809, William Allen was ordained pastor of the 
church, which office he held until his death, April 10, 1836, a period of 
twenty-seven years. It is but a just tribute to real worth to say that 
few men have labored in the gospel vineyard with more zeal than did 
Mr. Allen. He was pre-eminently a working man as well as a work- 
man. There were added to the church during his pastorate two hundred 
and fifteen members. 

During the last year and more of his pastorate his health failed 
and Rev. Enos Trask and Rev. Joseph Wilson served the church two 
years during which time forty-two were added to its membership. 

January i, 1837, Rev. Samuel Chisam, who had united with the 
church twenty-eight years before, became pastor, continuing until March 
29, 1846, when, having nominated his successor, he retired full of honor 
and universally respected. 

Rev. Luther C. Stevens of New Sharon assumed his pastoral duties 
in March, 1846, and served until August, 185 1, a period of five and one- 
half years. Mr. Stevens was endowed with many excellent qualities of 
mind and heart, and sought earnestly and faithfully to elevate the church 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 31 

to the gospel standard of purity and efficiency. Upon the recommenda- 
tion of Mr. Stevens the church next called Rev. William Tilley of Sid- 
ney, Maine, who entered upon his duties in January, 1852. After four 
years of faithful work he severed his connection with this church and 
entered another field of labor. In March, 1862, Mr. Tilley was given 
a unanimous call to again become its pastor. This pastorate lasted nine 
years in which there were added more than ninety members. In July, 
1 87 1, he again resigned only to be re-called in 1875 for the third time, 
which position he held until his death, October 2, 1882. His three pas- 
torates lasted over a period of more than twenty years. 

The self-sacrificing interest which he manifested for the spiritual 
welfare of his flock, the purity of his life and his superior ability to com- 
prehend and unfold the great truths of Christianity, were some of the 
points which endeared him to the people. 

The church has also been faithfully served by Rev. Daniel Bartlett, 
Rev. Moses J. Kelly, Rev. E. T. Sandford, Rev. A. J. Nelson, Rev. Edgar 
Hatfield, Rev. B. F. Lawrence and Rev. C. E. Harden. The time allowed 
for this paper will not allow extended note of their pastorates, except 
to say that the work of the church has never faltered and many addi- 
tions have been made. On January 19, 1896, Rev. John Pettingill of 
Rockland began his labors with this church and served until January i, 
1902, exhibiting good ability and having a rare hold upon the young 
people of the community. 

February i, 1902, the present pastor, Rev. A. A. Bennett, began his 
labors. His sermons have been deep, practical and spiritual and the 
work is in excellent condition. 

The Second Baptist Church owes its origin to the revival attending 
the labors of Rev. William Allen in 1807. 

In 1808 Asa Wing, afterward licensed by the church, entered upon 
the work. 

June 25, 1808, Rev. Isaac Case and Asa Wing (Mr. Allen was 
detained by sickness) met at the house of James Cunningham in western 
Jefferson, now called "the ridge." Here the converts previously bap- 
tized were organized into a church. The next day Elder Case, after 
preaching and baptizing, returned to the place of worship, which was 
a barn, and there administered the Lord's supper to the little band of 
eighteen members. Mr. Wing served the church about two years and 
from that time until 1818 it was usually supplied by Mr. Allen. William 
Burbank, licensed by the church in 1818, became its pastor in 1821. In 
the revival which blessed his labors in 1824, Elder Burbank baptized 
Enos Trask and Amos Boynton, both of whom became well-known as 
earnest preachers of the gospel. 

The same year, 1824, saw a division of the church. Elder Burbank 
and more than half the members being set off to form the Third church 
in Jefferson. For eight years the church struggled on without a pastor, 
without a house of worship, and with little preaching. 

Brighter days seemed to dawn with the coming of Rev. Enos Trask 
in 1833. Elder Trask, for nearly fifty years, had a deep interest in this 
church, and it was one of the last churches to hear his fervent and earnest 
appeal for a better life. This church held its services in schoolhouses 
until the present house was built in 1890. 



32 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

The Third Baptist Church was organized October 27, 1824, at the 
house of Jonathan Trask. Rev. William Burbank, who was pastor of 
the Second Church when the division was made, continued his labors, 
cheered by occasional revivals and steadily holding on in times of depres- 
sion and darkness for eighteen years. 

This church was afterward served by Rev. Amos Boynton, in all 
ten years ; Rev. Thomas Goldthwaite, two years ; Rev. Enos Trask, four 
years; Rev. G. E. Boynton, two years, and others whose record I have 
not received. This church worshiped in the Boynton schoolhouse until 
1844, when the present edifice was dedicated. 

A few years ago the building was repaired and remodelled, and at 
this time it became to a certain extent a union church, as the Free Will 
Baptists, who had an organization without a home, assisted in the renova- 
tion by purchasing part of the pews and the building has since been used 
jointly by the two organizations. 

The Free Will Baptist Church was organized in 1843 ^t the Murphy 
schoolhouse. This church has been served by some able men and for 
the last ten years or more the Rev. H. F. Wood has been the very efficient 
pastor. 

The number of Revolutionary soldiers whose record I have been 
able to trace in the short time at my disposal is limited. As the town had 
but few inhabitants at the time of the war, and as many who afterward 
settled in Jeflferson, resided elsewhere when they entered the service, and 
are so recorded, it becomes difficult to identify them without some family 
history. If any one present knows of others I shall appreciate it if they 
will inform me later in the day. The following have been taken from 
government records : Samuel Cunningham, Solomon Hopkins, Jesse Hall, 
Joseph Jackson, Samuel Jackson, Joseph Jones, Jonathan Jones, Archi- 
bald McAllister, Richard McAllister, James Robinson, James Shepherd, 
William Shepherd, Thomas Trask. ^^ , . 

Time will allow but a brief sketch 6i a -w of the early settlers 
with no attempt to trace their descendants except in a very few cases. 
There are many others which would be of interest to mention but the 
brief time for preparation has not allowed a more general canvass. 

Joshua Linscott, as previously mentioned, settled on the farm in the 
south part of Jefferson, near Newcastle, now occupied by Roswell Linscott 
and Abiel N. Linscott, and reared a family of eleven children. He died 
there about 1830, aged 95 years. 

About the same time John Linscott settled on the adjoining farm, 
now occupied by Ernest Weeks, and raised a large family. From these 
two have descended all the Linscotts who have ever lived in Jefferson. 

Ichabod Linscott, father of Joshua and John, lived at Damariscotta 
Mills, and as a millwright built the first dam and mill at that place. He 
held the title to his land under the Vaughn claim, and was one of the six 
whom Tappan prosecuted in July, 1741, for ejectment. 

Robert Clary, born in Georgetown, Maine, March 10, 1757, married 
Susannah Reirdon of Georgetown. She was born August 8, 1756. He 
moved to Jefferson in 1776 and settled near Pleasant Pond. They had 
eleven children, all born in Jefferson. 

Charles Glidden moved from Damariscotta in 1772 and took up the 
land bounded on the south by the road leading from Jefferson to Cooper's 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 33 

Mills, on the west by the Sheepscot river, on the north by the present 
town of Somerville, and on the east by Travel Pond. At the time of 
settlement he was six miles from any public road. D. S. Glidden now 
lives on his old homestead. He had two sons, Charles and William. 
William built the saw and grist mill at Cooper's Mills. 

John Boynton, a son of Caleb, was born in Wiscasset in 1743. He 
settled first in what is now Alna, later in Ballstown, his log cabin stand- 
ing nearly opposite the place now owned by Mr. Percy Hunt, near the 
head of Pleasant Pond, when his third child was born in 1772. He 
married Temperance Hogdson, who was born near Portsmouth, N. H., 
in 1737. They had six children, two of whom, David and Nathan, served 
in the War of 181 2, the former a captain and the latter a lieutenant. 

Jonathan Noyes, a son of Benjamin Noyes, was born in Rowley, 
Mass., February 9, 1746. He came to Ballstown in 1775 and settled 
near Pleasant Pond, on the farm afterward owned by the late Charles 
Dow. He had five children born in Rowley and six born in Jefferson. 
Several of his sons settled in Jefferson and from them have descended 
all those who bear the name in town. 

About 1725 or 6 Samuel Trask, when a boy, was stolen from Salem 
by the Indians, and an appropriation for the purchase of his redemption 
was made by vote of the town. As no trace of him could be discovered 
the money was applied to the purchase of a bell. But Trask was a captive 
among the eastern Indians on the Penobscot. His skill as a huntsman 
as well as his seamanship brought him into the notice of Baron de Castine, 
who purchased him of his captors, and employed him on board his sloop. 
He was taken from Castine by an English freebooter and transferred to 
the companionship of Captain Kidd, with whom he had been accustomed 
to visit the Sheepscot and cut spars. On the capture of Kidd and the dis- 
persion of his crew, Trask retired to Sheepscot and made a clearing 
within the limits of the early Free-town now incorporated as Edgecomb. 
His experience among the Indians gave him celebrity as one skilled in 
the curative art, and among the early settlers he was known as "Dr. 
Trask." Three sons of Samuel Trask, Jonathan, David S., and Thomas, 
settled in Ballstown, about 1795. Their farms included most of the land 
between the Third Baptist Church and William Hemenway's in South 
Jefferson. They all took a very active part in town affairs. Jonathan 
was the first representative from Jefferson to the General Court in Boston. 
David was the first town clerk. Thomas was the father of Rev. Enos 
Trask, to whom reference has been made. 

Elisha Clark, Sr., who married Patience Weston and settled per- 
manently on the farm now occupied by Alonzo Hodgkins, was the son 
of Josiah and Patience (Blackstone) Clark. They came to Newcastle 
from Dover Neck, N. H., about 1740. Elisha was a resident of New- 
castle for a number of years, being one of the selectmen in 1760-61-62. 
From him descended Elisha, Jr., the father of Hannah Linscott, Abigail 
Hodgkins, Betsey Gowen and several others. John, known as Fiddler 
Clark, who was the father of that numerous family, twenty of whom 
grew to mature age, was another son. 

The Clarks who formerly lived in East Jefferson were relatives, 
being descended from James of Newcastle, a brother of Elisha, Sr. On 
the Blackstone side they descended from the Rev. William Blackstone, 
the first owner and occupant of Shawmut, now the city of Boston. 



34 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

Captain Joseph Jones married Abigail Clark, daughter of Josiah 
and Patience B. Clark. He was a settler at Damariscotta Saw Mills, as 
the place was early called. He was a selectman in Newcastle in 1763 
and 5. His settlement in Ballstown was doubtless soon after, as he was 
one of the officers in the plantation and later of the town. He permanently 
settled where Walter Nash now resides. He was captain of a company 
of militia which was in active service during the Revolutionary war. His 
pay-rolls are among the Revolutionary records in the Massachusetts 
Archives. 

Jonathan Jones, his brother, also settled in Jefferson. 

They were the sons of Cornelius Jones, who came from Exeter, 
N. H., and was one of the early settlers of Newcastle. 

James Murphy of Scotch-Irish parentage was married to Sarah 
Lindsay at Arrowsic Island, Nov. 9, 1769, and very soon after settled 
in Ballstown on the shore of Pleasant Pond, where they raised their fam- 
ily of nine children, seven sons and two daughters. 

Mary married Gideon Ford of Ballstown. She was the eldest of the 
family and was born in 1770 at Pleasant Pond, and it is claimed she was 
the first child born of European parents in the plantation. She died Feb- 
ruary 21, 1863, aged 93 years, having outlived all her family. Her hus- 
band, Gideon Ford, Sr., died in October, 1805, at Mayhew's Corner and 
was buried near the First Baptist Church, his grave being one of the three 
that were formerly seen there. 

Among the descendants of James Murphy may be numbered the 
late Simon J. Murphy of Detroit, Mich., ex-Governor Nathan Oakes 
Murphy of Phenix, Arizona, and Frank M. Murphy, president of the 
Santa Fe and Prescott Branch Railroad. 

Abner Ford, Sr., was born in Marshfield, Mass., Nov. 8, 1724, and 
was the son of William and Hannah (Truant) Ford of that town. He 
married Bertha Sampson, daughter of Gideon Sampson of Marshfield. 
The date of his settlement in Jefferson is unknown, but doubtless early 
in its history. The homestead is now occupied by a descendant of the 
fifth generation, William Hemenway. Abner, Sr., was of the fifth gen- 
eration from widow Martha Ford, who immigrated from England to the 
Plymouth Colony in the ship Fortuna in 1621. 

Thomas Kennedy came to Maine from Bridgewater, Mass., when 
nineteen years old, and lived with his sister, Mrs. Jane Waters, at New- 
castle. He married Elizabeth Winslow of Newcastle, a descendant of 
Gov. Winslow, it is claimed. He came to Jefferson in 1778 with a Mr. 
Flanders and together they took up a tract of land running from the 
eastern shore of Damariscotta Pond to the Medomak river, and built a 
log house not far from where the Kennedy burying ground is now sit- 
uated. They had a large family, who largely settled in Jefferson and 
Waldoboro. One son, John, was the first deacon of the First Baptist 
Church and is well remembered by many of the older residents. 

Samuel Waters came from England, was a cooper by trade, pur- 
chased the head of Dyer's Neck, Newcastle, from river to river and 
resided on it. The country was wild, but the strong arm and determined 
will soon made a clearing and created him a home. He was a very pious 
man and did much toward sustaining religious ordinances among the 
people, and frequently had services at his own home ; but, like many good 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 35 

men, he had some peculiar ideas and ways, which at this time seem a 
little singular. When his second wife died, a friend in sympathy 
remarked to him: "You have lost your wife, Mr. Waters." "Yes," said 
he, "the loss of women and the increase of sheep will make a man rich." 
The last years of his life he spent in Jefferson on the farm later occupied 
by the late John S. Ames, at the head of Dyer's Pond. When the bass 
viol, just purchased, would be brought into the house where he wor- 
shiped, he would leave it saying: "It is both base and vile." When asked 
why, he said : "They play both Psalm tunes and dancing upon it." He 
was a firm Presbyterian and used to go to Waldoboro to partake of 
communion. He was very benevolent, and when living in Newcastle, 
when the people from Ballstown used to come to catch fish in the spring, 
he would entertain them free of charge. 

John Weeks, born in Greenland, N. H., in 1732-3, and married in 
1753-4, Abigail, daughter of Samuel Piper, of Stratham, N. H., and 
came to Damariscotta about 1769. He enclosed for himself and six sons 
five hundred acres of land in what is now Jefferson, for which he after- 
ward paid the government. He built a house and lived where the late 
James Benner lived on the west side of the pond. He was the ancestor 
of nearly all by the name of Weeks in Jefferson. His six oldest children 
were born in Greenland, N. H., but the seventh, Winthrop, was born in 
Jefferson, Feb. 4, 1770, making him among the first to be born in the town 
of white parents. 

Samuel and Joseph came from Newcastle and located at what has 
since been known as Jackson's Mills in 1778. Samuel, or Capt. Jackson 
as he was commonly called, built a house where Frank Davis now lives 
and raised a large family. He was captain of a company of militia in 
the early days and his manual of military tactics is now in the possession 
of one of his descendants, a valued heirloom. 

Deacon Joseph Jackson built a house where the late Joseph J. Bond, 
his namesake, lived. This place has been in the possession of the descend- 
ants of Joseph Jackson until the fall of 1906, when it passed out of the 
family. Joseph married Hannah Kennedy of Newcastle Feb. 22, 1787, 
and raised a family of eleven children. He was for many years a deacon 
in the First Baptist Church and the second representative to the General 
Court at Boston, making the journey there on horseback. 

These brothers served a brief period in the Revolutionary War. 
They built a saw and grist mill where the present mills are located and 
for many years it was the only grist mill in town. 

Henry Bond, of English descent, was born in Watertown, Mass., 
Oct. 25, 1749. He married in May, 1774, Mary Ann Fullerton of Booth- 
bay. He resided successively in Winchester, N. H., Wiscasset, and finally 
in Jefferson. He lived on the farm now owned by Avery J. Bond and 
had a timber house about half way from the present house to the pond, 
where the old cellar is still visible. He was a bricklayer and mason and 
the trade has been handed down through each generation. His descend- 
ants largely settled in Jefferson. 

John Taylor, Sr., came from Plymouth Colony, probably Scituate, 
as early as 1635, and took up land at Damariscotta lower falls and 
resided here until 1678 when he was driven off by the Indians, and his 
house burned. He had one son, Isaac, and several daughters. Isaac 



36 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

had four sons and one daughter. Joseph, Isaac's son, was born Nov. 
20, 1737, and married Thankful Clarke of Providence, R. I. He came 
to Newcastle in 1767 and soon built the house on Academy Hill known 
afterward as the Glidden house. 

Joseph and Thankful lived with their son John in Jefferson during 
the last years of their life. Their remains lie buried in the cemetery near 
the Trask meetinghouse. Joseph had ten children, several of whom 
settled in Jefferson, and among their descendants are many of our 
influential citizens. 

The Richardsons came from England in 1630 and settled first in 
Charlestown, and later in Woburn, Mass. Abiather Richardson came 
to Jefferson about 1780 and settled on "the mountain." He had three 
sons, Abiather, Justus and Ezra. 

Julius Richardson was born July 9, 1782, in Jefferson and married 
Jennet Bond of Jefferson July 9, 1807, and lived on the mountain near 
his father. 

Ezra Richardson was born April 20, 1784, and married Mary Jack- 
son of Jefferson, May 6, 1806, and settled on the farm now owned by 
Henry Flagg on the east side of the pond. 

Jonathan Eames was born in Wilmington, Mass., in 1716. He was 
the son of Daniel and grandson of Robert Eames, who came from Eng- 
land to Charlestown, Mass., about 1650. Jonathan removed to Woburn, 
where he was married in 1754 to Mrs. Dorothy Richardson, a widow 
twenty-one years old with one son, Abiathar. To them were born two 
sons, Jonathan in 1755 and Phineas in 1757. The family moved first 
to Woolwich and in 1775 to Jefferson or Ballstown as it was then called. 
On the bank of the river not far from the present location of Masonic 
Hall, they built a log house, which was standing for many years. 

Jonathan, Jr., shortly after moving to Ballstown in 1780 married 
Olive Young and moved to Somerset County, Maine. 

Phineas married Mary Jones June 13, 1782, and built a frame house 
near the present home of Melzar Nash. To them were born twelve 
children. 

Nathaniel Meservey came from Appleton and settled on the east 
side of the pond near Nobleboro line about 1800, and raised a large fam- 
ily, whose descendants largely settled in Jefferson. 

"O mother town a century old ! 
Whose welcoming arms these guests enfold, 
We come this bright auspicious day. 
Due honor at thy feet to lay. 

"Though other scenes may tempt the sight, 
Though other skies may shine as bright, 
And many a face be fair to see, 
No other seems so dear to me. 

"May peace and plenty reign upon 
The hills and vales of Jefferson, 
Justice and truth her people bless ; 
Her corner stone be righteousness." 




DAMARfSCOTTA LAKE, 
JEFFERSOW MB, 



THE UPPER LAKE 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 37 

THE CENTENNIAL POEM 

The Chairman: 

Fortunate are we as a town, in having among us a fair and talented 
daughter of Maine, who has composed a poem for this auspicious occa- 
sion. Miss Winifred B. Ladd, but who for physical reasons is unable to 
recite it to us. But happy are we, indeed, in having with us today, a 
fair and charming daughter of the sunny South Land, over whose people 
wave the stars and stripes today, and who will defend it as well as the 
people of the North Land. I have now the extreme and happy pleasure 
of presenting to you, Miss Ridge way, from the State of Georgia, who 
will read to us this poem. 

Shades of the forest wild. 

Haunt of the deer, 
Home of the savage child, 

Swiftly appear, 
Out of the dreamy past, 

Softened by time. 
Pictures we fashion fast, 

Painted in rhyme. 

Look on the wilderness, 

Billows of green. 
Over earth's leafy dress, 

Silvery sheen. 
Vocal with thrushes sweet, 

Cuckoo and jay. 
Where the stream rushes fleet. 

Fetterless, gay. 

Hither comes Wawenock, 

Careless of fear, 
Heaving the mighty rock. 

Chasing the deer; 
When in the early fall. 

Full of the moon. 
Hears he the wild duck's call. 

Voice of the loon. 

Damariscotta's lake 

Bears his canoe. 
While the loud echoes wake 

With his halloo. 
Straight to its fated mark 

Swift arrows fly. 
Till from the shadows dark 

Rises a cry. 



38 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

When with abundant prey 

Filled are his boats, 
Back at the close of day 

Homeward he floats. 
Gently the wigwam's smoke 

Curls in the air ; 
Lightly the paddle's stroke 

Carries him there. 

Vanished the Indian tribe, 

Chieftain and squaw ; 
Briefly their fate inscribe. 

Write it with awe. 
There on our broad lake's shore, 

None to molest, 
All their wild wand'rings o'er, 

Lie they at rest. 

Simple the picture seems. 

Artless the life ; 
Close to the land of dreams, 

Far from earth's strife. 
Into this lovely bay. 

Sheltered so long. 
Sailed a strange craft one day. 

Gliding along. 

• Winds from the mighty world 

Wafted it on. 
Breathed on the flag unfurled. 

Fair Jefiferson ! 
Over the Indian grave, 

O'er plain and slope. 
Swept like a tidal wave 

New life and hope. 

Land of our fathers' care, 

Our heart's delight, 
Then rose thy day-star fair, 

Cloudlessly bright. 
Heaven then smiled on thee, 

Hidden no more; 
Ordered thy destiny, 

Blessed ev'ry shore. 

The primeval wilderness suddenly wakes ; 
A new day has dawned on the hills and the lakes. 
The English are coming with promise of good. 
To build them a home in the heart of the wood. 
How nobly they labor, what trials they face, 
As they steadily toil in their own chosen place, 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 39 

Till loved ones are housed in a sheltering nest; 

No birdlings so happy, go east or go west ! 

The sound of the axe and the hammer is heard, 

While oft is exchanged the bantering word. 

They mow down the fir-tree, the hemlock and pine ; 

The ship knees they fashion to sail o'er the brine. 

From yon Pine Tree Point down into the bay, 

They raft their huge logs at the break of the day; 

Past the mouth of the river, the "Ox-bow" in view. 

Straight down to the Narrows, the journey pursue. 

Their voyage completed, returning with song, 

They bring the wares of the merchants along. 

In a short hundred years what a work they have done ! 

Nor in vain were their labors under the sun. 

There were streams to compel to work out their will, 

By planting beside them some busy mill. 

There were lands to be cleared, and barns to be filled. 

There were highways to make, and bridges to build; 

And on "Zion's Hill" a house to be raised, 

Where elders might preach, and God be praised; 

A schoolhouse, too, they must put in its place. 

And hire a master of wisdom and grace. 

By line and by precept the truth to impart. 

And educate rightly the mind and the heart. 

And thus grew the town like a family tree. 

All brothers and sisters of one pedigree. 

The place seemed too narrow ; away they would roam 

To seek in new lands a more spacious home. 

They carried the lessons of youth where they strayed. 

And deep for success the foundation laid. 

When up from the South came the war's dread alarm, 

They sprang to the rescue, all ready to arm. 

They fought like heroes, they died like saints. 

Nor burdened the air with selfish complaints ; 

But they longed with feverish thirst where they fell, 

To taste of the water from grandfather's well. 

A remnant returning from prison and field. 

Now live in our midst, our honor to shield. 

Ah ! great is the heritage fallen to these. 

The children to whom are given the keys 

Of treasures hoarded through troublesome years, 

And laid away carefully, often in tears ! 

A whole generation has left in our care 

The riches thus gathered as legacies rare. 

For us they labored with unceasing toil. 

For us they tilled the unpromising soil ; 

For us they fought, for us they prayed. 

And on our heads hands of blessing they laid. 



40 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

Over yonder they lie: — the worn hands at rest, 
The loving hearts still in the once sturdy breast. 
Let us pause before all of the brave words are said, 
To shed a fond tear o'er the graves of the dead. 

Come now to the "mountain" and look o'er the vale, 

Where nestle the homes on the hill, in the dale. 

All round the horizon there stretch purple hills, 

A rim for the vessel the crystal lake fills, 

Like a sea of silver that glistens afar, 

As it mirrors the image of sun or of star. 

There glows no emerald green like the trees 

That bask in this sunlight and sway in this breeze. 

Over wide-spreading fields where'er the eyes roam. 

Stretch the waves of the grass with daisies for foam. 

No fields and no woods more peacefully lie, 

While expands above all God's glorious sky. 

Sweet Auburn's no sweeter than this lovely plain. 

No village more fair by the brook or the lane. 

Down there in those homes dwell the friends of our youth. 

With hearts of pure gold, staunch lovers of truth. 

There are dear little children with bright golden hair; 

There are heads touched with silver by sorrow and care. 

They mourn for the wanderers gone far away. 

The light of their eyes, their comfort and stay. 

Come back to these friends with their wide-open arms, 

Come back to deserted old houses and farms. 

What matters the world with its promise of gold? 

It soon will forget you when you have grown old. 

And you, the home-birds who've staid in the nest, 

Remember the lessons you've learned were the best 

From a father's wise head, a mother's kind heart. 

Then bear in the future your own noble part 

In the cares and the joys of your dear native town. 

And be to its councils an honor and crown. 

Ye children of Jefferson, 

Her heart's fond desire. 
Still keep ever burning bright 

The old hearthstone fire. 
The world tides flow in to you. 

World tides flow out ; 
Your lighthouse must drive away 

Darkness and doubt. 

Then keep the lamps trimmed aright. 

Safe at home stay; 
The light of this corner may 

Reach to Cathay. 




THE MONUMENT 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 41 

Some star in your sky may rise, 

Constant and brig-ht, 
Whose rays shall illuminate 

All the dark night. 

Let peace and prosperity, 

Faith, hope, and love, 
Forever abide with us, 

Lead us above. 
May the God of our fathers send 

AH blessings down, 
And make thy land beautiful, 

Loved native town. 

Winifred B. Ladd. 



MR. BATEMAN^S ADDRESS 

The Chairman: 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — Again it is my pleasant duty this afternoon, 
to present to you Professor L. C. Bateman, who will charm you with his 
forensic Grecian oratory. 

Mr. Bateman: 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens of My Dear Old Home: — In this 
great audience none was more deeply touched than I by that song, so 
splendidly sung by the quartette : 

"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood. 

When fond recollection presents them to view ! 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood, 

And every loved spot which my infancy knew ; 
The wide spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, 

The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell; 
The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it, 

And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well ; 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss covered bucket, which hung in the well." 

Every foot of this soil to me is sacred. It was here, in the long ago, 
that I ran among you a bare-footed boy. It was in yonder sacred edifice 
that I listened to the eloquence of dear old "Father" Tilley. It was under 
his ministrations that I learned my early Sabbath lessons, and it was he 
who pronounced the last solemn words over the cold clay of those I loved. 

It is certainly a pleasure to come back here in your midst today. 
Strange faces are before me, although now and then I see one whose hair 
is tinged with gray who sat with me in the little red schoolhouse down 
below in the days of "auld lang syne." 



42 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

It is a magnificent tribute that has been paid to your town of Jefferson 
today. When I first received the invitation to come here, I was thinking 
that I had no particular claim of ancestry in the town of Jefferson, as I 
came here when a small boy. A little later I reflected that I was a 
member of the Sons of the Revolution, and that the great-grandfather, 
whose papers I presented to that society in order to gain admittance, 
was a pioneer of the town of Jefferson. 

I hold in my hand a letter that will interest you. I received it a few 
days ago from a cousin of mine, Miss Angie S. McLintock of the town 
of Winslow, and from it I will read a few extracts : 

"I presume you are planning to attend the Centennial at Jefferson. 
I should be most happy to be there myself, but cannot promise myself 
the pleasure it would give. I have some papers of ancient date that 
belonged to my great-grandfather, James Robinson, he being one of the 
first settlers of the town, coming from the State of Massachusetts. He 
took up four hundred acres of land in what was then a wilderness, and 
built a log house for himself and his companions. The land he took 
bore the name of 'Robinson Ridge,' and goes by that name at the present 
time. 

"My grandfather held several responsible offices in that town, viz. : 
that of coroner, of which the paper I send you proves my statement. He 
was also a soldier of the Revolution and a lieutenant in that army. I 
have a pass that was given him in the Revolutionary Army when he was 
sick. It was given under the direction of the regimental surgeon and by 
the order of Brigadier General Butler. This James Robinson was my 
great-grandfather on the maternal side, and his name I find in the list 
of the early settlers of Jefferson. 

'T suppose I am too late for a report of a little paper I have in the 
form of a mortgage given my Grandfather Robinson when he made the 
pews of the First Baptist Church in Jefferson. The society was at that 
period rather small. My grandfather furnished the lumber and made 
the pews, and they gave him this security on them until he was paid for 
the lumber and labor. The names signed to this document are : Samuel 
Jackson, Deacon William Kennedy, James Robinson, Jr." 

I have read only little extracts from this letter, but they will convince 
you that I have a claim to being a descendant of one of the old pioneers 
of Jefferson, and I assure you that it will be one of my proudest boasts 
in the future. 

I know it is customary on occasions of this kind to deal only in 
words of eulogy and praise. I have sometimes thought that a pessimistic 
view should be thrown into the midst of the optimistic. It is well that 
we examine our horizons carefully to see if there are any dangers there. 
We are apt to hear nothing but the pleasant side, and none is more sen- 
sible of the fact than I that he who dares to speak the truth, even if it 
be an unpalatable one, is liable to call down criticisms upon his own head. 
I shall at once invoke criticism here today, but let me say to you in the 
beginning that he is not your best friend who simply points out your 
virtues ; he is your best friend who tells you of your failings and your 
faults, in order that you may correct them and attain a higher order of 
manhood and womanhood. He is not the best friend of the storm-swept 
mariner who tells him that his sails are well set, that the wind is calm, 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 43 

and that no danger lies in his pathway. Oh, no! He is the best friend 
of that mariner who tells him that the little speck of a black cloud on 
yonder horizon is liable to develop into a tornado that will send him and 
his vessel to destruction. He is the best friend who points out the ripple 
on yonder sea and tells him that just beneath the surface lies the coral 
reef. 

It is well that we look at facts. It is well, also, that we heed the 
warnings and the teachings and the morals of history. Look at yonder 
monument and read the names of those old pioneers who settled this 
town when it was but a wilderness ! Who were they, and what blood 
flowed through their veins? It was the same blood that flows through 
your veins and mine — the Anglo-Saxon, the Teutonic, the Celtic, and 
possibly the Scandinavian. It was that blood that built up this civiliza- 
tion. It was that blood that built yonder church. It was that blood that 
built the schoolhouse where you and I sat at the feet of teachers and 
learned our earliest lessons in the English language. It was that blood 
which built the civilization which made possible yonder grange hall. 
It was that blood which made possible all these things that we boast of 
here today, and to which allusion has been made by other speakers in 
such glowing words and with such forcible eloquence. 

Are we to maintain that civilization? Are we to perpetuate the 
virtues of those fathers whose names have been held up here to reverence 
today? Think you that there is no storm-cloud on yonder horizon? 
Think you that this republic is destined to march firmly and proudly 
down the corridors of time, as has been told you here today? 

The lessons of history lie before us. Other nations and other times 
have known a splendid civilization. Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, Egypt, 
Greece — each and all have illumined the pages of history. We recall the 
fate of Rome, that sat on her seven hills and proudly ruled the world. 
We do not forget the immortal republics that once clustered around the 
shores of the classic Mediterranean. Each and all have passed through 
the same history. They arose, blazed forth their civilization for a brief 
period, and each in its turn perished beneath the whirling wheels of time. 

And yet we are told that there is no danger on our political horizon ! 
Let us see. In the last few years the tide of immigration has been com- 
pletely reversed. I look before me today, and I see the flower of New 
England civilization ; of that there can be no question. I am not given 
to flattery, and before my remarks are finished you will think, perhaps, 
it would have been wiser in me to have flattered more. 

I again repeat, the flower of New England civilization sits before me. 
What will be the civilization that will sit before the speaker who talks 
from this same spot one hundred years hence? It is a very delicate sub- 
ject, is it not? Your children, your grandchildren, your great-grand- 
children — think you that they will be just as good as their ancestors of 
to-day? Think you they will have just as many virtues, as many noble 
traits of character and as many noble institutions of which to boast? Are 
you sure of it? Pardon me if I cast a doubt. Twenty-five years ago I 
used to lecture in the state of Rhode Island. I could go into any little 
country village and fill a hall to overflowing. I found those little factory 
villages made up of English-speaking people. I found them to be 



44 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

intelligent Anglo-Saxons like myself. I found them ready and eager to 
patronize any decent entertainment that might come along. 

I go down into the State of Rhode Island today, and I cannot make 
enough money by lecturing to pay my hotel bills. As I walk along the 
street I rarely hear the English language spoken. I hear a jargon and a 
babel of foreign tongues, and the highest idea that those creatures have 
of an entertainment is to take a rooster under each arm every Sunday 
morning, go out behind some country barn and have a brutal cock fight. 

This is the class of men that is coming today to build up our civili- 
zation and maintain the honor of our Stars and Stripes. Think you that 
they will do it? I consider it to-day the greatest danger that confronts 
this nation. Unless some check can be placed upon this tide of immigra- 
tion that is flowing to our shores from the degenerate races of the south 
of Europe, then the Anglo-Saxon civilization in the not distant future 
is doomed. It cannot exist as it is going on to-day. One million and a 
half members of these degenerate races are coming to this country every 
year from south of the Mediterranean. And who are they? They con- 
stitute the scum of earth and the dregs of hell. 

We all know the influence of environment. Your children and 
grandchildren will be brought into contact with a lower order of civiliza- 
tion. Alexander Pope has told us in immortal verse the result of such 
contamination : 

"Vice is a monster of such hideous mien 
That to be hated needs but to be seen; 
But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

Go into any of our great manufacturing centers today and what do 
you find? You will find an army of proletariats growing up, more ter- 
rible and dangerous to the liberties of this country than were the hordes 
of northern barbarians who under their chieftain, Alaric, swept down 
from their wilderness upon the palaces and legions of imperial Rome. 
Crouched in those dens, vice and crime are today breeding all the dan- 
gers that our civilization abhors. It is there that the rum shop finds a 
stability that nothing can check; immorality an impulse no power can 
stay; crime a seed-bed that nothing can sterilize, and religion a barrier 
that nothing can level. 

I have stood upon the palaces of the Caesars, built more than two 
thousand years ago, and of such enduring materials as would seem 
destined to last as long as time itself. But yet, the roots of the tiny weeds 
that have grown around their bases have made them but a shapeless mass 
of ruins. As I stood alone at night, with the pale rays of the moon 
shimmering down through those grand old broken arches and vine- 
covered walls, I could only ask myself the question: "Where now is 
that noble race of men who once thronged those gorgeous but now silent 
and deserted halls? Where now are those invincible legions that once 
carried her proud eagles into every land? Where now are those mighty 
geniuses who gave laws to and swayed their sceptre o'er all the nations 
of the earth?" Oh, how degraded! Could the virtuous Cicero but look 
down from his abode in the heavens and see the Italian in his present 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 45 

degraded condition, as he trudges from country to country with his 
organ upon his back and his monkey by his side, he could not forbear 
the exclamation : "How fallen, oh, my countrymen !" 

Is there no danger from this tide of immigration sweeping across 
the broad Atlantic from the south of the Mediterranean? The student 
of history points the finger of caution to the future as he reverts to the 
disasters of the past. Let us not lay the flattering unction to our souls 
that our loved land of the free and the home of the brave can claim 
exemption from the fate that has befallen other nations. Without intel- 
ligence, virtue and patriotism to guide the actions of her people, no 
nation can ever hope to march steadily on the great highway of human 
progress. Let us be warned in time, for the day may come when repent- 
ance will be too late. 

We have been told here this forenoon of the wonderful wealth that 
this nation has accumulated. We have had the figures shown to us of 
the enormous increase of material wealth. With these statements I have 
no quarrel to make. The fact of this material gain in worldly wealth is 
true beyond the shadow of a doubt. But allow me to ask who is gaining 
that wealth. England is a wealthy nation, possibly more wealthy even 
than our own. But who owns the wealth of England? Twenty thousand 
men own those enormous accumulations, while thirty million English- 
men are shivering on the ragged edge of pauperism. Go with me to the 
magnificent city of Edinburgh, and from there we will sweep down to the 
city of London, a distance of four hundred miles. 

It is a magnificent country through which we pass. As the train 
rolls along at the rate of sixty miles an hour, we catch the occasional 
glimpse of a magnificent marble palace embowered in groves of old 
English oak, and filled with wild game of every sort. Turn your gaze 
in another direction, and down in the little sequestered valley you will 
find a small hamlet of thatched roof cottages. Humble indeed are they, 
and all the signs of poverty are there. It is in these cottages where dwell 
the humble peasants who till yon lordly owner's soil. 

Go with me to the city of London and visit Westminster Abbey — 
the mausoleum where sleep the honored dead of England. We pass 
down long aisles of marble monuments erected to rotten and forgotten 
kings, and then we reach that sacred spot known as "The Poets' Corner." 
A simple marble slab marks the grave of Oliver Goldsmith, one of the 
noblest of England's bards. And then we remember these immortal 
lines from his "Deserted Village": 

"111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay; 
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, 
A breath can make them as a breath has made ; 
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride. 
When once destroyed can never be supplied." 

Yes, England is a wealthy country. For a thousand years, since the 
reign of Alfred the Great, she has been working out that system which 
has resulted in the present order of things. In this country we are 
treading in exactly the same pathway. We are marching along that 



46 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

road with vastly greater rapidity. It will not take the same length of 
time with us that it has in our mother country beyond the sea to work 
out precisely the same results. Already the rumblings of that condition 
of affairs, coming from a discontented people, can be heard on every 
hand. Yes, we have great wealth in this country. The figures given 
us by the distinguished gentleman this forenoon are only too true. Par- 
don me if I now make an application: It has been shown you that wealth 
is increasing with tremendous rapidity in this country. As an offset to 
that, I have shown you that we are being deluged by a degenerate 
population from foreign shores. 

Now I am coming home to you. In 1850 the town of Jefferson had 
a population of 2,225 people. They were just such men and women as 
I see before me today. At this moment you have less than 1,100 people 
in this town. One-half of your population has disappeared. The last 
census proves that statement. What has become of your population? 
I will leave it to others to investigate the cause. 

What is true of the town of Jefferson is true of almost every rural 
town in the State of Maine today. Only a few weeks ago I made a trip 
to a town adjoining the city of Lewiston. With me was an old gentle- 
man whose boyhood days were passed in that place. As we drove along 
the streets I saw house after house wrecked and gone to ruin. I saw 
cellars grown up with bushes and moss clinging to the ruins. I noted that 
the spot once pressed by the feet of happy childhood was now the habitat 
of the bat and the owl. My friend pointed to these' places, and occasionally 
remarked that Vk'hen he was a boy, more than sixty years before, those 
places were productive farms that bloomed like the rose. Great herds 
of lowing cattle were in the pastures, and large families of children were 
in the homes. Wild weeds are now growing on the walls, and the wild 
beast licks her cubs where once were the busy haunts of men. 

This is the condition that exists in many of our country towns all 
over the State of Maine today. In the far West the change is going on 
as fast as it is with us. 

In my hand I hold an editorial cut from the Boston Post of a week 
ago last Saturday. Let me read it to you : 

"The murderous row among Chinese inhabitants of Boston compels 
attention to the conditions under which alien immigrants from other 
countries settle here. From the earliest times of this republic, the United 
States has been held to be the refuge of the oppressed of all nations. 
Here they were asked to come and enjoy the rights of manhood and of 
liberty. 

"But they were not asked to bring here the political or factional 
antagonisms of the land which they may have left, and especially were 
they expected to put away anything that should militate against their 
acceptance of the absolute equality and mutual helpfulness which is the 
foundation of this republic. 

"This privilege has been abused. The United States has been made 
the basis of anarchistic combinations whose murderous undertakings 
have shamed humanity. The mafia has been imported here from Italy. 
The camorra and the "black hand" have festered here. The Armenian 
political guild of murder has slain American citizens and threatened 
others. 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 47 

"The situation is intolerable. We, here in America, want none of 
these insanities of the degenerate east. They are exotic, inconceivable, 
abominable beyond expression. We must wipe out the "tongs," the 
"high-binders," the "Hunchagists," all the abomination of alien nomen- 
clature, and clean up America." 

This editorial says, "Clean up America!" In other words, we must 
close the stable and lock it up after the horse has been stolen. The editor 
did not tell us how we are going to clean that stable up. Unfortunately 
for us, those foreign outcasts have all got votes. 

Who owns the labor-saving machinery? The great trusts and the 
great moneyed corporations. They it is who say: "You must not stop 
these foreign immigrants from the south of Europe from coming here. 
We want their cheap labor that we can all of us become Rockefellers 
and Morgans. You politicians can have their votes, and we millionaires 
will take their cheap labor and become billionaires." 

There you have the secret of the whole matter. It is an incontro- 
vertible truth that I am telling you, and we are all fools enough to let 
them do it. 

Is there no danger confronting the American republic, and is there 
no obstacle in our pathway to a higher civilization? Never were such 
difficulties looming up as are now looming up before the people of this 
country today. Whether we can stop this is now problematical. Per- 
sonally, I fear that the time has gone by when the American republic can 
be saved, simply because year by year this people is growing less. One- 
half in the town of Jefferson that you had in 1850, and the Italians, the 
Hungarians, the Armenians, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, the Poles and a 
score of other degenerate races are sending in their immigrants at the 
rate of a million and a half a year ! They are bringing their own cus- 
toms, a hatred of political institutions, a knowledge of nothing but to 
kill, to break down and to destroy ; and then you tell me that there is 
no danger, and that everything is clear sailing before our ship of state! 

The Latin poet Virgil has drawn a vivid picture of one of the scenes 
which hastened the downfall of ancient Troy. The noble Trojan priest, 
Laocoon, had denounced the infatuation of his countrymen when they 
determined to receive into the city the monstrous wooden horse filled 
with living Greeks. He tried by every means within his power to arouse 
them to a sense of their peril, and at last, in despair, hurled his own 
spear against the hollow fraud. But fearing that his passionate appeals 
might prove eft'ective, the Grecians sent two snakes across the sea from 
Tenedos, whose crest dripping blood and quivering fangs licked their 
hissing mouths. 

They made their way at once into the city to the home of the Trojan 
priest and his sons, wound themselves in hideous festoons around their 
limbs and bound them in a group of agony which classic sculpture has 
rendered immortal. The enormous serpents crushed and choked their 
helpless victims and raised their poisonous fangs above the brow of the 
patriotic priest. Thus the wooden horse was admitted into the city, 
and that night Troy was sacked and laid in flames. 

The wooden horse of classic history is today represented by this 
terrible immigration which is pouring in to overwhelm the Anglo-Saxon 
civilization. Laocoon is still pleading with his countrymen today; his 



48 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

voice echoes and re-echoes from the green hillsides of Maine to the land 
of the orange and the cane. The serpents have again been sent forth, 
not from Tenedos, as of old, but from the gilded offices of the million- 
aires and trust-builders of our land to stifle down his warning, dying cries. 
With you — the bone and sinew, the brawn and muscle, the intelligence, 
the patriotism, the true nobility of this land — it remains whether the 
fate of modern America shall be the same as that of ancient Troy. 

And now to those noble pioneers whose memory we are here to 
celebrate and to reverence today, we bring the tribute of our gratitude 
and love, and lay the laurel wreath of our appreciation upon their lowly 
graves. Though no bronze or marble monuments may ever rise above 
the heads of the immortal sleepers, let us fancy in our imagination that 
angel hands bedeck their graves with sweetest wildwood flowers, and 
that the chorus of nature shall ever make ceaseless music above their 
pulseless breasts. 

One moment we will be optimistic. The star spangled banner still 
waves; American blood and American patriotism still course through 
the veins of every loyal citizen from Maine to California, and from Ore- 
gon to the Atlantic Ocean. As long as those citizens and their descend- 
ants shall remain, this republic will not, shall not, perish from the earth. 



THE ORATION 

The Chairman : 

It is my final duty to present to you the orator of the day, the Rev. 
Nelson S. Burbank, pastor of the First Baptist Church, Revere, Mass. 

Mr. Burbank: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — You have heard good things enough in the 
last three or four hours to last you a century. If you are weary, I 
should like to give you this word of encouragement and sympathy: It 
will be a long time before you are invited to assist at a second Centennial 
of the town of Jefferson. 

I am reminded of a story I read a few days ago about a young 
couple recently married. The wife kept the pocketbook, and the record 
of how the money was expended. One day the good husband thought 
he would like to look over the record. He found many entries in the 
book, dry goods, groceries, and so on. Every now and then there was 
an entry marked "G. K. W." He was anxious to know who "G. K. W." 
might be, and so he said to his wife: 

"Who is this 'G. K. W.' that I find here in your accounts?" 

"Oh," she said, "it is this way: I tried to think of everything that 
I had purchased, and to make an entry, but I found every week that 
there was a failure on my part to make the accounts balance, so I put 
it in, 'G. K. W.,' Goodness knows what!" 

There has been so much said today from this platfonn, and so well 
said, that I hardly know what there is for me to add. I think, however, 
that I ought to follow pretty closely what I had prepared to say, for if 




VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 49 

I talk away from it I am sure I shall commit what would be the unpar- 
donable sin of detaining you too long. 

I want to say that I am very glad to be here to enjoy with you this 
most delightful and interesting occasion. The years of my life have 
been blessed and brightened by the memories of my childhood, by the 
memories of those friends who years ago extended to me the helping 
hand and who gave to me the encouraging word. Although my voting 
residence has been for a long time in a different State from this, I feel 
very much like one of the family today, as we engage in this splendid 
season of thanksgiving and rejoicing. 

There are many silent voices that speak to us as we journey on in 
the pathway of life. Sometimes the voices bring a message of joy and 
gladness, and sometimes a doleful tale of remorse and woe they tell. 
Sometimes these silent voices inspire our hearts with new-born hopes 
and lead us on to heights not yet attained, and sometimes like a dark 
mantle of sorrow they almost shut out the sunlight of the soul. 

There is friendship's voice. It is always sweet, and to it we listen 
with a great deal of satisfaction and delight. It soothes our troubled 
spirits and drives our cares away. There is the voice of nature, and it 
speaks to us from every bursting bud and every blooming flower, from 
every running stream and every surging sea. Then there is the voice 
of conscience — a voice from within, which is supposed to be like a mar- 
iner's needle, a true and trusty indicator of the course we can safely 
follow. It is not, however, the voice of friendship, nature or conscience 
that we hear most distinctly at this hour. It is the past that speaks to 
the present with peculiar emphasis and power as we meet and mingle 
in this Centennial Celebration. It is our duty as well as our privilege 
to recall in pleasant reminiscences the days of old. None of us want to 
be forgotten. Down deep in the human heart there is a longing for an 
immortality here as well as for an immortality in the great hereafter. 
To think it possible to be dropped from the memory of our friends and 
kindred when we are gone would indeed be a painful thought, and one 
that would disturb the peace and happiness of the passing years. 

" 'Tis sweet to be remembered" 

Joseph was dying down in Egypt. After a sad and serious separa- 
tion lasting a long time the broken family ties were reunited, and now 
he requests that his bones be carried back to Canaan. This request was 
made because he could not endure the thought of being forgotten. The 
mighty Napoleon, whose military movements had shaken and shattered 
many of the old world nations, was breathing his last on a lonely island 
in a far-away sea. As a final favor he asked that his body might be 
buried in the Paris he loved because he, too, could not bear to be for- 
gotten. Twenty years later his dust was unearthed at St. Helena, con- 
veyed to the capital city of the French republic and there deposited in 
a magnificent mausoleum. 

The greatest man in all history — the God-man, instituted a last sup- 
per where He took bread to represent His body and poured out wine 
to represent His blood ; and this. He said to His disciples, you are to 
continue to do, and whenever and wherever it is observed it is to be done 
in remembrance of Me. It is the Master's memorial. 



50 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

It is, therefore, to honor the fathers and to perpetuate the memory 
of their achievements that we engage in these exercises. And not only 
this, but also to express in a fitting manner our appreciation of the bless- 
ings they have bestowed upon us. Yesterday left a legacy for today. 
Every generation makes a bequest to the generation that follows. God's 
great universe is built on the basis of co-operative benevolence. In every 
department it abounds in gratuitous giving. The rocks dissolve, dis- 
organize and give themselves to the soil. The soil in its life-producing 
properties gives itself to the plant. The plant as a means of sustenance 
gives itself to the animal. The animal as meat or a beast of burden gives 
itself to man, and man, in turn, gives himself to his Maker in the secular 
and spiritual service he renders to others. The brook from the mountain 
side runs down through the valleys into the river. The river runs into 
the sea. The sea gives up itself in the form of mists. The mists make 
the clouds, and the clouds pour out their contents freely upon the face 
of the earth. The sun gives its beautiful beams of light to bless the 
world. The birds give their songs to make us happy and hopeful. 

The history of civilization is in harmony with this divine decree, 
which we discover not only in the sacred Scriptures, but also in the 
movements of the material realm. Incidentally, I shall enumerate some 
of the treasures with which the world was enriched during the eventful 
days of the nineteenth century, but I would have you bear in mind 
that the purpose of this address is to bring from the past to the present 
two or three brief messages. The century we cover today in measuring 
the life of this municipality is by its inventions and discoveries telling 
us with no uncertain sound that mind is mightier than muscle, and that 
the conquests of thought are greater than the conquests of military 
weapons. 

In political revolutions, in moral reformations and in social trans- 
formations it is so. Stephenson, the inventor, put to a personal friend 
the question: "What makes the locomotive go?" The ready response 
was, "Steam, of course." "No," said he, "it's the sun — first in the 
plant, then in the coal field and now in the steam." Surely he was fol- 
lowing the stream to its source. He was getting at the first cause, but 
even Stephenson himself did not go back far enough. It is thought that 
moves every piece of machinery and makes every locomotive go. The sun 
held its throne at the center of the solar system long ages before the 
steam horse went rushing along the rails. It was not until after the 
thinking mind had met and mastered many problems that the locomotive 
appeared as a mighty factor in the world's civilization and commerce. 

While hurriedly turning the pages of a well-known and widely read 
book the other day, I came across a quotation from one of the famous 
addresses of that silvery-tongued orator, Edward Everett. After describ- 
ing somewhat at length the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 
1620; after speaking of the weariness that came in consequence of a 
five months' voyage on a stormy sea; after referring to the difficulties 
they encountered in the new world, and the dangers to which they were 
exposed, he said : 

"Close now the volume of history and tell me on any principle of 
human probability what shall be the fate of this handful of bold and 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 51 

daring adventurers. Tell me, O man of military science, in how many 
months will they be swept from the face of the earth by the wild and 
savage tribes that wandered through the forests of New England? 
Where among the settlements of the past can you find a parallel case?" 

And then, after a fine and eflFective rhetorical pause this great 
statesman went on to show how wonderfully in opposition to all human- 
probability, and contrary to all scientific and historic calculations, this 
enterprise has yielded the greatest and grandest results. In 1620 the 
American Republic was only a dream and a desire, a purpose and a 
prayer ; but now, in less than three hundred years, the Stars and Stripes 
have gone almost half way around the circumference of the globe. 

The founders and fathers of this good old town of Jefferson, even 
though they may have been gifted with a prophetic instinct and inspired 
with visionary hopes, had no conception of the changes that have come 
in a single century. It has been an epoch of history making, an era of 
intellectual movements. The musket is giving way to the microscope. 
The mind has made long strides in the struggle for the supremacy over 
matter. The man of blood has surrendered to the man of brains. Many 
of these years that we recall today have been pre-eminently scientific 
in their activities and achievements, and in this fact lies the secret of 
their power and progress. We do not deny the claim so often made that 
no structures excel in massiveness the Egyptian Pyramids or in grandeur 
the rock temples of India. We quite agree with the sentiment of the 
admirers of antiquity when they say that the obelisks of the Nile are 
still sought to ornament the capital cities of Christendom, and that the 
very fragments of the Parthenon are still treasured as specimens of a 
splendid architecture that has not been surpassed. We know that the 
sculptures of Phidias set a high standard for modern art, and that 
Homers great epic is everywhere recognized as a masterpiece in poetry. 
In oratory, statesmanship and military movements the age of Pericles 
attracts our attention and awakens our admiration. 

But of greater things than these do we boast. In surgery we have 
made such rapid advances that the surgeon of fifty years ago if he were 
living now and held to the old methods would not be allowed to teach 
a class of beginners or perform a simple operation. By the discovery 
and use of ether this department of medical science has been revolu- 
tionized until now it is possible to use the scalpel without inflicting pain. 
When we think of the blessings that in this way have come to humanity 
we are not surprised that the first etherized sponge used by Dr. Morton 
is still kept as a precious trophy by the Massachusetts General Hospital. 
By improving and enlarging the telescope we have come to see as never 
before the sublimity of that Scripture which says: "The heavens declare 
the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork." About 
two centuries before the birth of our Lord, Hipparchus turned his eyes 
toward the sky and tried to count the stars. He thought he was suc- 
cessful in the undertaking, for he said there were just exactly 11 20. A 
little later Ptolemy counted over after him, and he made 1122. A step 
farther along in the pathway of time, and the number was finally fixed 
at 1 160. When Galileo by means of a marvellous invention explored the 
regions that stretch beyond the reach of our natural vision he declared 



52 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

that there are more than four hundred milHons of these evening lights 
that unite in driving away the darkness of the night time. But the tele- 
scope of today informs us that the stars are countless, as countless as 
the sands on the shore. 

We have harnessed electricity to our chariots of travel and wheels 
of manufacturing industries until now it has come to be recognized as 
one of our most useful servants. In the electric battery a large number 
of important inventions center. The plaything of Franklin has become 
one of the most powerful agencies in the business world. Baltimore 
and Washington were connected by wire. The success of the experi- 
ment showed conclusively that long distances could be easily overcome 
by this new method of communication. 

Within a few decades there was talk about a trans-Atlantic system of 
telegraphy. After repeated discouragements and failures a cable crossed 
the deep at a distance of 2,500 miles, and now there are fourteen of these 
lines that bridge the Atlantic and make it possible to send messages at 
a speed that surpasses the swiftness of Shakespeare's Ariel, who boasted 
that he could "put a girdle round about the globe in forty minutes." In 
trying to improve the telegraph the telephone was invented. Since 1876 
more than a million telephones have been installed in the homes and 
offices and work-shops of this country alone. It is said that one dollar 
invested in the Bell Telephone stock when that stock was first placed 
on the market would have yielded profits enough in twenty-five years to 
make the investor wealthy. The transforming touch of thought is 
everywhere felt. The old is giving way to the new, and the past is 
yielding to the present in the struggle for the survival of the fittest. 

Within the memory of many of us the grain fields of the West were 
harvested by a scythe with a cradle attachment moved by the muscular 
arm of the mower. There was the cutting process, the binding into 
bundles, the hauling into barns and then the threshing. But now the 
up-to-date reaper does nearly all the work at a single stroke. The driver 
mounts the machine, seizes the reins, drives the horses, and the wheat 
is cut and threshed and left in sacks on the ground as they rapidly move 
along. Nothing escapes the searchlight of modern science. Some one 
has said that even the pebble by the roadside is made to reveal its secrets. 
Chemistry records its compounds ; physics takes note of its weight and 
color; geology tells the story of its travel, and mineralogy does the work 
of dissecting and discovers its anatomy. The natural products of the 
soil are turned from their ordinary tendencies by the touch of science 
so that we have the white blackberry and the seedless apple, the apple 
that is sour on one side and sweet on the other. And now they are 
experimenting, we understand, with the milkweed and the strawberry, 
hoping to graft one to the other, and thus get strawberries and cream from 
the same plant. 

What does it all mean ? Let me give you the summary of a mag- 
azine article on this subject. "It means that the average American 
mechanic of today is better circumstanced than was the king of a century 
ago. He has more safeguards and protection against disease and death. 
It means that the mechanic of today, in comparison with the monarch 
of one hundred years ago, lives on the earth more like an angel and less 
like an ape. He has a broader mind, a more liberal education and a 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 53 

knowledge of the universe more exact and extensive. He will live longer, 
and he ought to live better." 

"Take from me," says the past to the present, "another message. It 
is this : Struggle is the stepping-stone to success." It is the law of life, 
for through it comes growth and development, and whenever and 
wherever it ceases degeneration begins, and the signs of death and decay 
at once appear. Some of the nations that led the world's activities three 
thousand years ago have become extinct. Where are Babylon, Greece 
and Rome? They have gone out of existence because they were unwill- 
ing to make the struggle necessary to keep in step with the onward march 
of progress. All that we have in our Christian civilization that is worth 
keeping has been purchased at the price of a struggle. Every thread in 
the garments we wear; every article of food on the table from which we 
eat ; every good book that feeds the mind and quickens the soul and every 
moral movement that drives back the night of evil and ushers in the morn 
of a brighter and better day represents a struggle. Go into a dark room 
and turn a button and behold the blazing electric light; sit down m a 
farmhouse on a winter's evening and listen to the phonograph as it 
reproduces the concert program given in a large city months ago ; visit 
a laboratory at Orange, New Jersey, and there examine an instrument 
that investigates the heat of the sun's corona and gives valuable informa- 
tion concerning the temperature of the stars. Get on board that express 
train that beat the world's record the other day by making a mile in less 
than thirty seconds. Wonderful is the word that describes these inven- 
tions—wonderful in the joys they afford, in the privileges they make 
possible, in the opportunities they offer. But more wonderful than the 
inventions themselves, I believe, has been the spirit of sacrifice that has 
been manifested on the part of the inventors. Think of Edison and 
others shutting themselves up from the outer world, refusing to mingle 
in society and robbing themselves of the common comforts of life in order 
that they might concentrate all their energies and powers on their work ! 
Think of these things, and you get some idea of what it means to be a 
leader in the onward march of events. We boast of our citizenship in 
this country, and well we may, for it has been purchased with coins of 
the same currency. Our forefathers labored long and hard in order that 
the doors of free institutions might be open to us. Luck has a large place 
in the philosophy of the foolish, but every wise person knows that things 
can only be brought to pass by those who are willing to sacrifice and 
suffer. Newton saw an apple fall. It was no unusual sight, for apples 
had been falling in exactly the same way ever since Adam and Eve 
partook of the forbidden fruit, but it suggested to him the principle that 
brings together and binds together particles of matter. It has some- 
times been called an accidental discovery, but there was nothing accidental 
about it. It was the victorious hour in a great struggle— a struggle to 
find the fundamental law of the universe, the law of gravitation. 

Persecutions have not been restricted to the religious realm. When 
coal first began to be used for fuel there was an awful cry that came 
from the common people. A petition was presented to the king to pro- 
hibit its use on the ground that it was a nuisance. Finally Edward the 
Second heard the petitioners, and the decree went forth. The trans- 
gressor was to be punished for the first offense by the payment of a cer- 
tain sum of money, but for the second offense the stove in which it was 



54 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

burned was to be broken into pieces. The stocking loom met a similar 
fate. The Frenchman who invented it was anxious to have the patronage 
of the king, and so a fine pair of hose was sent to Louis the Fourteenth, 
but the unworthy servant by whom they were sent cut a few threads so 
they would easily ravel, and in this way succeeded in prejudicing the mind 
of the king. Think of the charges brought against the first locomotive ! 
It was said that the sparks coming from the smoke-stack would set the 
train on fire; that it would drive all the game from the woods through 
which it passed; that through the facilities for transportation it would 
destroy the market for hay and grain, seriously affecting the prospects 
of the farmer and all the country communities. But the spirit of struggle 
has been greater than the opposition along these lines. It is the spirit 
of struggle that bridges over rivers of difficulty, that leaps over walls of 
prejudice and climbs the hills of hardship. If at first it does not succeed 
it is willing to try again, for the spirit of struggle has within itself the 
pledge and promise of coming victory. 

Another important message that comes to us from the past is that 
friendly and fraternal co-operation is better than sharp and selfish com- 
petition. I never take a drive through the country or pass a day by the 
sea without being impressed by the fact that God, the Creator, made many 
things in the material realm to stand together and to be mutually related. 
This was His plan, this was His purpose, and this is His programme. 
The birds that merrily wing the air and blend their voices in harmonious 
song are in flocks ; the cattle that graze upon the hillsides are never quite 
contented unless in herds; the fish that swim so gracefully through the 
waters of the deep are in schools; the busy little bees that sip the honey 
from the flowers are in swarms; the trees, from the gigantic oak and 
lofty pine down to the stunted shrub and creeping vine, flourish best in 
forests where limb touches limb and each leans upon the other for sup- 
port and protection; the mighty mountains, lifting up their peaks toward 
the sky, and measuring out to us in divine wisdom the sunshine and the 
storm, are welded together in chains. Leaving this larger laboratory, 
where the Almighty unceasingly toils, and entering the more humble 
work-shop of man, we find that the same principle prevails. There must 
be friendly co-operation, or there can be no success. One wheel turns 
another. The spindle feeds the loom, and the loom supplies the clothing 
departments in the commercial world. It is a surprising statement when 
I say that there have been more important inventions and discoveries 
since 1807 than in all the preceding pages of the world's history. Do 
you doubt it? Then go over the list and by a careful mathematical com- 
putation and comparison you will find that previous to that date there were 
but few chapters in the book of mechanical marvels and miracles. How 
do we explain this fact? There must be some reason. We ought to be 
able to give an explanation. To say that this particular period has pro- 
duced a race of intellectual prodigies who have easily out-distanced all 
that went before them might satisfy the boastful braggart, but it will 
not satisfy the minds of those who are disposed to be more fair in their 
comparisons. Yet it is so, and the reason, I believe, is to be found very 
largely in the fact that we have come to realize in these last years a better 
feeling of brotherhood. The inventor and mechanic have come together. 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 55 

They did work separately so far as possible, but little was accomplished, 
and little could be accomplished. 

There was a time when the discoverer hid his findings by writing 
the description in some unknown tongue and then concealing it in the 
archives of some historic collection. Let us believe that that time is 
forever past, and now the widest publicity is given to all these things. 
The inventive mind is kept active and alert, and one improves and enlarges 
upon the work of another. The principle of wireless telegraphy is so 
fully explained in our magazines and publications that I know of a high 
school boy who has constructed a system of his own, and has sent and 
received messages over a long distance. 

We must not be content with the backward look. We must have 
a forward look. The Golden Age of the poet is in the past, but the 
Golden Age of the prophet is in the future. I hope you have not 
received the impression from anything I have said, or that others have 
said today, that the past is a synonym for perfection and purity. If you 
get that idea from my remarks, you certainly have missed a point in my 
message. We hear quite a good deal about "the good old times," when 
the church was faultless, and men were honest and political parties were 
uncorrupted by the greedy grafter. But when were those good old times? 
I have an idea that this has been a current expression with all the gen- 
erations along the world's history. We think, perhaps, of the ministers 
of the gospel coming within our acquaintance who have proved false to 
their charge, disgraced their high calling and brought divisions and strife 
into the church of Christ. We sigh for "the good old times," when there 
was less hypocrisy in the church and more sincerity among religious 
leaders. Do we refer to the days of the Apostles? Judas, we are told in 
a very good book, sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. That was 
one in twelve, and I am sure we are making a better record than that. 
We lament the lack of unity among the laborers in our Lord's vineyard, 
and wonder why good people cannot agree in their methods. You may 
attend a gathering of farmers and hear them discuss the best methods 
of raising potatoes. I will guarantee that there will be as many theories 
advanced as there are potatoes in a bushel measure. We turn back the 
pages of history to find those good old times when good people were in 
perfect agreement, and we find Paul and Barnabas falling out at Antioch. 
We keep turning the pages until away back in the Bible book of beginnings 
there were Abram and Lot in a disagreement which resulted in a division 
of the flocks and a separation of the families. When were those good old 
times, when politics were without graft, and when men were always 
sincere and unselfish? There have been good times in the past, there 
are good times in the present, and we may make the future even better 
than the past has been. 

When Dr. Seguin was in attendance on the Educational Exhibit at 
Vienna, several years ago, he said that from the toys placed there for 
inspection it would be easy to infer the history of the countries from 
which they came. For instance, the pewter soldiers were from France, 
and France produced a mighty Napoleon. The most fashionably dressed 
dolls were also from France, to remind one of the society women of 
Paris. The doll houses, that were large, with different apartments, very 
tastily arranged, were from Germany, and were suggestive of the home- 
loving instincts of the Germans. The sheep and the cattle and the goats 



S6 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

were from Switzerland, and told of the Swiss peasant life. After wan- 
dering about for a time in the midst of this exhibit the doctor said to 
the lady attendant, "Where shall I find the American toys?" With a 
flourish of her hand, she pointed to the trunks and valises and said, 
"There are the American toys." I believe it was Emerson who said that 
every American is restless unless he is on the move, and every now and 
then says, "Is it not time to pack up and go somewhere?" 

I am impressed with the fact as I have listened to these exercises 
today that Jeflferson, this good old town, so true to her friends, has not 
been sending out into the world toys, but men and women, many of 
whom, I believe, have honored the principles so faithfully laid down by 
the fathers of this township. We look back with a great deal of thank- 
fulness, of gratitude, to those noble men of God who planted here the 
church and the school and all civic and religious institutions, and I 
believe that their sons and daughters who have followed on after them 
have heeded well the lessons they taught, and have built securely a super- 
structure upon these foundations. 

Possibly the young men here may get an impression that everything 
that is worth doing has been done, that we only have now to hold with a 
firm grip the heritage of the fathers. Not so ! If I had the ears of the 
thirteen millions of the young men of this land today, I would say to 
them, "Not so! The future will expect of you greater things than the 
past has produced. Yes, greater things, along higher and better lines." 

"For the grandest times are before us, 
And the world is yet to see 
The noblest work of this old world 
In the men that are to be." 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 



57 



COMMITTEES 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 



Frederick William Jackson 
Leslie Boynton 

Samuel Albert Richardson 



HISTORICAL COMMITTEE 



A. J. Bond 
W. A. Jackson 
A. N. Weeks 
A. N. Linscott 



D. S. Glidden 
Winfield Hodgkins 
C. W. Besse 
W. F. Hemenway 



M. I. Johnson 

F. W. Bowden 
S. D. Erskine 

G. V. Benner 



RECEPTION COMMITTEE 

L. F. Cudworth 
Walter F. Ruggles 
Edward M. Hilton 
Alden E. Hodgkins 
Frank C. Davis 



Pearl Whittier 
Silmon R. Ames 
John R. Hilton 
Melvin Hopkins 



Fred Ames 
Forest Flagg 
E. E. Achorn 



POLICE OFFICERS 

W. F. Tibbetts 
A. R. Hall 
Amos Fish 



E. E. Walton 
E. N. Weeks 
Lervey Castle 



Geo. B. Erskine 
Geo. M. Weeks 



ORATION COMMITTEE 



A. J. Ames 
A, D. Kennedy 
Henry Trask 



T. T. Weeks 
Ernest Weeks 



M. I. Johnson 
S. T. Jackson 



MUSICAL COMMITTEE 

H. C. Clark 
J. Y. Meserve 



Henry Cunningham 
Amos Fish 



58 



Forest Bond 
E. E. Walton 
Everett Weeks 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

PARADE COMMITTEE 



J. Y. Meserve 
Allie Hall 
Ira Boynton 
Frank Tibbetts 



Harold Dow 
Fred Meserve 
E. E. Achorn 



SOLICITING COMMITTEE 



Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Skinner 
Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Bond 
Mr. and Mrs. Arlington Hall 



Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan Hodgkins 
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Farnham 
Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Tibbetts 



Alden Boyntiui 
A. A. Skinner N. 
G. W. Pitcher \ 
John Madden ^ 
John E. Mc6urda 



SALUTE COMMITTEE 

Geo. H. Dow 
Abiel Boynton 
Cyrus Boynton 
Hugh Kerr, 
Sylvester Vinal 
W. H. Noyes 



James Anderson 
S. R. Hodgkins 
Alvah Davis 
Geo. E. Linscott 
E. W. Lewis 



H. A. Jackson 
Thomas Moody 



FIRE WORKS COMMITTEE 

Samuel Erskine 
A. J. Avery 
W. B. Tibbetts 



Wallace Weeks 
Herbert Weeks 



Rev. A. A. Bennett 
C. W. Besse 



PRINTING COMMITTEE 

E. A. Hoffses 
A. J. Bond 



H. W. Clary 
Alonzo Hodgkins 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 59 

FINANCIAL REPORT 

OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 



RECEIPTS 



March, 1907, Appropriated by the Town, at the Annual Meeting $300.00 

July I, L. H. Clary, gift 100.00 

July I, Leslie Boynton, gift 100.00 

Aug. 10, Dr. John L. Ames, gift 3.00 

Aug. 19, Mrs. Clara Avery, gift 20.00 

Aug. 19, Dr. F. W. Jackson and wife, gift 100.00 

Aug. 2T), Horace Hall, gift 3.00 

Oct. 28, Walter Trask, Esq., gift 10.00 

Total $636.00 



EXPENDITURES 

Aug. 19, Printing 1,000 Programmes $ 20.00 

Aug. 23, O. J. Weeks, for cutting Boulder for the Tablet .... 4.00 

Waierville Band 53.80 

" Chas. Achorn, transporting band between Cooper's 

Mills and Jefferson 21.00 

" New England Decorating Co., of Boston, for use 

of bunting and flags 8.00 

" Boston Regalia Co., for badges 5.00 

" Bay State Brass Foundry, for bronze tablet 60.00 

" Masters & Wells Fireworks Co., for fireworks 200.00 

" Geo. HoflFses, for sheeting and supplies 3.65 

Aug. 28, W. W. & F. R. R. for special train for the band from 

Waterville, and return 33-6o 

Aug. 29, Herbert Clark, for South Jefferson Band 30.00 

" Willow Grange, for dinners for guests 16.75 

Aug. 31, Police duty, Fred Ames, Forest Flagg, Edson Achorn, 
Wilber Tibbetts, Lervey Castle, A. R. Hall, Amos 
Fish, Elmer Walton, Everett Weeks, nine officers 

at $2 each 18.00 

Sept. 20, Forest Bond and J. Y. Meserve, for expenses of the 

Parade 25.00 



-6o CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

Sept. 20, J. Y. Meserve, for rent of plank in constructing seats, 
and returning the same to mill, and for breakage 

of ^^ board feet $7.68 

Nov. 19, Paid carfare used in engaging Waterville Band .... 3.00 
Dec. 31, Vannah, Chute & Co., for one barrel cement, for foun- 
dation of the monument 1.95 

" Eben Trask, for 150 feet of lumber spoiled out of 
2,000 feet loaned for making the speakers' stand, 

band stand, and frames for the fireworks 3.00 

" John B. Rafter, for the services of four deputy sheriffs 8.00 

" Balance reserved for printing the book 1 13-57 

Total $636.00 

Leslie Boynton, 

Treasurer of the Executive Committee. 



TOWN OF JEFFERSON 



6i 



EARLY SETTLERS OF JEFFERSON 



David S. Trask 
Johnathan Jones 
Jonathan Trask 
John Johnson 
James Reeves 
Thomas Weeks 
WilHam Hopkins 
Abiathar Richardson 
Joseph Weeks 
Peter Dow 
James Robinson 
Henry Bond 
John Parker 
Samuel Waters 
John Polley 
Joseph Berry 



Richard Powers 
John Hennesey 
John Taylor 
Hezekiah Ripley 
Moses Rodgers 
William Ford 
John Patrick 
Jsaac Hilton 
John Catlin 
Timothy Ferring 
Samuel Averill 
David Boynton 
David Gillman 
Robert Clary 
Thomas Hilton 
John Holbrook. 



David Murphy 
Nathan Boynton 
Moses Noyes 
John Plummer 
Enoch Averill 
Winthrop Weeks 
Elijah Clarke 
Isaac Whitman 
James Shepherd 
Bryant Linning 
Darias Perham 
Noah Farnham 
Samuel Cunningham 
Thomas Trask 
David Trask 



4 1908 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 041 270 3 






■■■>■ i-.-^f^m^ 






>:iL:iJ 



